Beyond the Impossible The Futures of Plant-based and Cellular Meat and Dairy Brighter Green is a New York–based public policy action tank that aims to raise awareness and encourage dialogue on and attention to issues that span the environment, animals, and sustainable development both globally and locally. Brighter Green’s work has a particular focus on equity and rights. On its own and in partnership with other organizations and individuals, Brighter Green generates and incubates research and project initiatives that are both visionary and practical. It produces publications, websites, documentary films, and implements programs to illuminate public debate among policy-makers, activists, communities, influential leaders, and the media, with the goal of social transformation at local and international levels. Brighter Green works in the United States and internationally, with a focus on the countries of the global South.
This paper is part of the Vegan America Project (VAP), a conceptual space that employs veganism as a heuristic to examine the social, economic, psychological, and cultural changes that will both occur and be necessary as the United States and the world confront climate change. VAP is an independent project of Brighter Green. VAP is funded by VegFund (https://vegfund.org). For more information, visit veganamericaproject.com.
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Report Credits Writer and researcher: Martin Rowe Design and layout: Emily Lavieri-Scull Thanks for editorial input to: Mia Macdonald, executive director of Brighter Green; Suzanne Lipton; and Ken Swensen; along with the assistance of Kyrillos Rizk Thanks also for their contribution to: Friends of the Earth, Good Food Institute, GRAIN, Kadim et al., Ocean Hugger Foods, New Harvest, Wild Earth, and the World Resources Institute. Much appreciation to VegFund for its ongoing support of the Vegan America Project.
Photo and Illustration Credits Blue Nala: 12:1 (used with permission. For more, visit: https://oceanhuggerfoods.com/ahimi) Emily Lavieri-Scull:* Pages 1, 2:1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10:1, 10:2, 11, 16, 17, 19, 28 (bottom), 31, 34, 35, 37, 39, 55 (© Emily Lavieri-Scull 2018) Friends of the Earth: 29 (cover of report) Good Food Institute: 6 (© GFI 2017), 18 (© GFI 2018), 21 (© GFI 2017) (used with permission) GRAIN and IATP: 26 (to access images, paper, visit: https://www.iatp.org/emissions-impossible) Kadim: 22 (Kadim, Isam T., et al. “Cultured Meat from Muscle Stem Cells: A Review of Challenges and Prospects.” Journal of Integrative Agriculture [2015] 14[2]: 222–233.) © 2015, CAAS. All rights reserved. Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi: 10.1016/S2095-3119(14)60881-9 Martin Rowe: 2:2, 12:2, 14, 20 Nic D on Unsplash: 15 (https://unsplash.com/@trancisky) Wild Earth: 28 (top) (used with permission. For more, visit: https://wildearth.com/) World Resources Institute: 32 (from Ranganathan, Janet. et al. Shifting Diets for a Sustainable Food Future: Creating a Sustainable Food Future, Installment Eleven: https://www.wri.org/publication/shifting-diets) (Creative Commons)
* For a description of all the vegan food in the photos by Emily Lavieri-Scull, see the “Food Details and Locations” section on p. 55.
Copyright © Brighter Green 2019 Brighter Green, 165 Court Street, #171, Brooklyn, NY 11201. 212-414-2275 x 15 Printed on 30% recycled paper www.brightergreen.org eyond the Impos- sible explores the currentB landscape in the U.S. of plant-based meat and dairy prod- ucts and cellular agri- culture. (See “Terms of Reference” on p. 18) for a discussion of the term cellular agriculture.) It examines the opportunities opened up by, and the challenges that face, their widespread manufacture and adop- tion, and places both within the contexts of a longstanding discussion of a “natural” diet in the West, the stark questions posed by an increasingly globalized industrial animal agriculture system, and the looming catastrophes of climate change and biodi- versity loss. The paper is designed for those interested in knowing more about the science and rapidly evolving technological, business, and social-change dimensions of plant-based and cellular meat and dairy products. It also offers a larger philosophical and imaginative framework within which to consider how we balance the sometimes competing values that animate advocates for a healthy diet Precisely because much of the research and technology and sustainable food systems, food technologists, and those and many of the companies in these industries are rela- committed to veganism and animal rights. tively new, and because a substantial body of third-party Beyond the Impossible owes much of its information and research and long-view sociological analysis is not yet avail- many of its voices to New Harvest and the Good Food Insti- able, skepticism regarding outcomes and possible devel- tute, two non-profit organizations at the forefront of providing opments is warranted. This approach is reflected in this research in, information on, paper. That said, for those of and discussion about plant- us (the author of this paper The paper is designed for those interested in based and cellular meat and included) who despair at the knowing more about the science and rapidly dairy. Speakers and presenters trajectories for meat and dairy evolving technological, business, and social- at New Harvest’s 2017 and consumption globally in the change dimensions of plant-based and cellular 2018 and Good Food Institute’s context of biodiversity loss,2 meat and dairy products. 2018 conferences, as well as the runaway climate change, and organizations’ websites, videos, the huge numbers of animals and documents proved invaluable in presenting a snapshot who suffer now and are killed for meat and dairy products of these industries at a nascent stage of development. Also at the moment (and will in the future), genuine opportuni- helpful were several other events—including the Ivy League ties to lessen the most damaging consequences of industrial Future of Food Conference, Food Loves Tech, and Food Tank’s animal agriculture presented by plant-based and cellular Food Waste Conference (all in 2018)—and the Cultured Meat agriculture technologies offer some hope to change these and Future Food Podcast hosted by Alex Shirazi, which began trajectories and remediate the worst. This attitude is also in 2018.1 reflected in this paper.
1 ents a vision of the future that, this author believes, offers a way through the conceptual, socio-political, and perhaps even technological complexities that await both sectors. The paper concludes with recommendations for how people in all these spaces might open up discussion, bring more stakeholders on board, and hold the competing values together, so we might chart a way forward, with maximal impact and minimal delay, toward a genuine and lasting climate resilience. context
lant-based versions of animal-food products have Pexisted for centuries. Tofu (bean curd) has origins dating to at least a thousand years ago in China and seven centuries4 back in Japan. Its fermented form, tempeh, may have been present in Indonesia as early as the sixteenth century.5 Wheat gluten may have been eaten in East Asia as early as the sixth century,6 even though the term for its popular flavored itera- tion, seitan, was coined only in 1961. John Harvey Kellogg7 made wheat gluten and various nut-based meat analogues at his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan, in the early 1900s.8 As an undertaking of the Vegan America Project,3 Beyond Non-dairy milks have also existed for centuries. Almond milk the Impossible also asks whether cellular and plant-based meat was drunk in the Middle East and Europe in the 1300s, and and dairy products may be useful tools to help us transition soymilk was consumed in China in the 1500s.9 Kellogg also from an agriculture centered on monocultures of feed crops developed his own soymilk. and industrial animal farming toward a more diverse, plant- Other meat analogues, such as vegetarian burgers of based agriculture, where many fewer farmed animals supply textured vegetable protein (TVP, invented by ADM),10 soy, the cells and proteins that allow cellular agriculture to thrive, or other beans (such as in Sosmix)11 have been available12 in without having to be killed. In producing Beyond the Impos- the West since the late 1960s. Plamil Foods in the U.K. was sible within the context of the Vegan America Project, this founded in 1965 to sell soymilk, and branched out in the writer is aware that some readers will expect more emphati- 1970s to sell other vegan foodstuffs.13 Seth Tibbott started the cally drawn ideological lines, while others will be leery of any soy and seitan meat company Tofurky in 1980,14 and non- judgments expressed lest they emerge from an ideological meat patties from Gardenburger (owned by Kellogg’s) and commitment they do not share. This balance, readers will Boca Burger (now a division of Kraft foods) followed in 1981 find in this paper, is deliberate: not as a result of a lack of conviction, but because, as you will read, the complexities and nuances of the arguments require a more supple and imagi- native response if we are to meet the considerable challenges facing the future of food security and that of our planet. The paper begins with an outline of the historical and conceptual background to both plant-based and cellular meat and dairy products. It then lays out the specific challenges (technological, knowledge-based, regulatory, and consumer- based) confronting the development of plant-based meat and dairy products and cellular agriculture. The paper then outlines concerns expressed by those advocating for broad adoption of a whole-foods, plant-based diet, as well as criticisms from social and environmental researchers and activists, and pres-
2 and 1982 respectively. Quorn, a protein made from fungus, between men and women; between men, women, and nature; was released in the U.K. in 1985.15 and cooking, and who prepares and eats which food.26 This Until recently in the West, meat analogues were predomi- pursuit is itself a facet of humankind’s quest for our appro- nantly marketed to (and eaten by) consumers concerned with priate, often divinely mandated relationship with Nature and their health and/or committed to animal protection. Although other animals, which is in turn framed by various taboos, the ecological burden on and the calorie-delivery inefficiencies circumscriptions, and hieratic obligations that surround the of a meat-intensive diet have been known to the general public use and killing of animals—including pollution/sanctifica- since Frances Moore Lappé issued Diet for a Small Planet in tion, in-group/out-group identities, and food choices. These 1971,16 neither the environmental movement nor animal are inevitably reflective of gendered attitudes over which advocates, nor (for that matter) dietitians have made them the animals are to be raised and killed by whom.27 central plank for changing hearts and minds about how we For cultural anthropologist Nick Fiddes, author of Meat: raise animals for food. Nor was how the meat and dairy substi- A Natural Symbol, food is always more than nutrition, taste, tutes tasted a major component of their marketing pitch. or affordability: “Our attitudes to different foods are condi- The reasons for this relative indifference among activists tioned by the associations which we invest in them and we to gastronomy in the West may have partly been that the faux learn these from the day we are born.”28 Furthermore, “[t]he meat pucks, powders, or plant-based milks didn’t taste like foods we select reflect our thought, including our conception the real thing (or weren’t meant to). They weren’t attractively of our actual or desired way of life and our perceptions of the packaged and they were hard to produce at scale. These reali- food choices of people with whom we wish to identify.”29 ties were, in turn, perhaps the cause and effect of at least some These conceptions are reinforced, Fiddes argues, with vegetarians and vegans (hereafter veg*ns17) presenting their animal flesh, which is rich with meanings, many of which diet as self-denying,18 purifying/cleansing,19 and an expression were enumerated above. These meanings, Fiddes observes, of individual (self-)righteousness20—a deliberate rejection of mirror how we view economics, technology, and society: the trope of meat-eating as unhealthy and self-indulgent. Throughout the long tradition of Western veg*ism, Each meaning, and countless others, is true for the stretching back to Pythagoras, eating and not eating meat individuals concerned, extending the significance of have existed in a kind of symbiotic dialectic. Some veg*ns as the name of a particular meat, or of meat in general, well as meat-eaters have acknowledged that eating animals far beyond its function as a foodstuff. It is the totality is symbolic of festivity or tribal bonding,21 gendered identi- of these ideas which combine to form a language, ties and virility,22 and can lead to the arousal of animal spirits and which constitute culture.”30 (aggression, strength), as well as gluttony and excess.23 Both veg*ns and meat-eaters have claimed that the choice of As Fiddes summarizes, meat is, therefore, both compart- whether to eat or not eat animal flesh is a facet of our distinc- mentalizing and encompassing: “[Meat] is about what parts tive human identity.24 of which animals we habitually eat, when we eat meat, where These often contradictory social and ethical associations we eat it, and with whom we eat it.”31 inevitably color responses from both groups on how closely The inherently ambivalent constructs around meat like- analogues should mimic meat’s social and culinary (re)presen- wise carry echoes of imaginary Golden Ages and aspirations tations, or whether they should do so at all. These incongrui- for ideal human and human/animal communities. These ties are themselves embedded in complex attitudes toward might take the form of the prophet Isaiah’s eschatological food that exist on a continuum between those who see food vision of animals and humans in concord (Isaiah 11) in the essentially as a nutrient delivery system governed by taste, Hebrew Bible, which is itself a restoration of the prelapsarian price, and convenience on the one end and those who value it diet of Genesis 1:29. Or they may hearken to bucolic notions as a multilayered and interconnected set of personal, familial, of the (inherently noble or ennobled) farmer working in religious, emotional, and cultural expressions on the other.25 concert with his livestock—an idealized representation of Finally, the extent to which you consider food a biolog- republican values of modesty, piety, and discipline in contrast ical necessity or ultimate expression of human uniqueness is to the personal and political corruption of urban life. They wrapped in a millennia-long discussion on what constitutes a might accompany the refinement of the animal body through “natural” diet—and, as the highly gendered hunter/gatherer astringent practices or through progressive cycles of reincar- paleo-anthropological mythos suggests, the “natural” relation nation—until there is no body at all.32
3 Although the various unable to turn around or step arguments for a “natural” diet outside.39 Slaughter-lines have with or without meat have sped up, and working condi- existed for centuries, and tions are still some of the most proscriptions surrounding meat dangerous, both physically and may be based in protective psychologically.40 sensory mechanisms to avoid One reason for a growing contaminated or rotten food, emphasis on farmed animal whether or which parts of suffering among animal protec- which animals to eat is (as tionists has been this dramatic Fiddes suggests) freighted with rise in the number of animals symbolic and moral import.33 raised and killed, as well as the Religio-ethical principles on conditions in which they live and what makes a body inviolable die. 41 Of the 10 billion animals (for instance, sentience, natural killed in the U.S. each year, for rights, ahimsa or nonviolence, instance, 95 percent were raised metempsychosis, God’s law) and slaughtered for food (not perhaps inevitably foster a including fish), dwarfing the sectarian or even separatist numbers of those used in exper- identity (Essenes, Brahmins, imentation or entertainment, Jains, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jews, Muslims).34 In such hunted for fur or sport, or killed by automobiles.42 Despite situations, not eating flesh or specific animals becomes a some federal legislation in the U.S. that offers some animals means for a group to distinguish itself from, and yet remain some protection on their way to slaughter and on their in critical relationship with, a larger or external society.35 arrival,43 many abuses are exempt from oversight because they are considered “standard industry practice.” Indeed, poultry the spread of factory farming (which constitute over 90 percent of all animals slaughtered In the last fifty years, two considerations have broadened for food) receive no protections at all.44 interest in veg*sm beyond worries about meat’s inflamma- The welfare of farmed animals in CAFOs and at slaugh- tory effects on individual human health or the soul. These terhouses was the subject of Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines are the growth and spread of Concentrated Animal Feeding (1964), Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation (1975), and Peter Operations (CAFOs)—so-called factory farming—and, more Singer and Jim Mason’s Animal Factories (1980), as well as recently, the realization of animal agriculture’s outsized contri- sections of The Animals Film (1980).45 These works in turn bution to environmental degradation and climate change. inspired the founding of new organizations—such as People The deaths of animals for human food has long drawn for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (1980), Farm Sanctuary the attention of philosophers, writers, and artists, but it was (1986), Compassion Over Killing (1995), and Mercy For Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle (1908) that first brought Animals (1999). The last three focus exclusively on the welfare to public attention the mechanized, industrialized mass of farmed animals and promoting veganism. slaughter, and life-threatening, degrading, and demoralizing conditions for immigrant workers (mainly of Eastern Euro- the “failure” of advocacy pean heritage) on the disassembly lines of Chicago’s meat- Nevertheless, in spite of decades of advocacy (education, packing industry.36 Sinclair hoped his book would encourage provocation, “open rescues,”46 demonstrations, and boycotts), labor reform; instead, the public demanded and received new as well as publications offering more insight into the emotional federal food safety laws.37 and social lives of farmed animals,47 extensive academic work Since then, and particularly following the Second World in animal ethics,48 and many exposés, books, articles, and films War, animal agriculture has further industrialized and consol- documenting the cruelties of factory farming, the number of idated, and multinational conglomerates have made possible those who no longer eat animal products has remained below its expansion beyond the West.38 Ever greater numbers of five percent of the population in industrialized nations,49 with poultry, pigs, dairy cows, and (for much of their lives) beef perhaps the exception of Israel.50 In 2018, the U.S. ate more cattle are raised in pens, cages, or stalls in large sheds, often meat (222 lbs per person) than ever before.51 Furthermore, as 4 the world’s population has risen, grown richer, and become more urbanized, intensive animal agriculture has spread to emerging markets to promote and meet the demand for meat and dairy products. This has occurred in regions, such as China, India, and some countries in Africa, where, respectively, meat was considered a condiment, there was a strong vegetarian tradition, or animals may have been worth more to people alive (as labor, chattel, or providers of dung and urine) than dead.52 These realities have led some animal advocates to conclude that efforts to convince consumers about the immo- rality of eating animals or highlighting the cruelty of CAFOs have failed, or at least are no match for the convenience, tasti- ness, or affordability of farmed animal meat and dairy.53 Bruce Friedrich, a long-time animal advocate and vegan who is now executive director of the Good Food Institute, a non-profit that promotes plant-based meat and cellular agriculture, is succinct about his organization’s aim:
Our goal is to take ethical considerations off the It is within this socio-historical, ethical, and climatolog- table, and to make the best choices from the perspec- ical context that the considerable interest in and emergence of tive of sustainability, climate change, global health, a new generation of plant-based meat and dairy products and and animal welfare. cellular agriculture should be understood. Their advantage In other words, we want to make the best consists in that both plant-based and cellular products could choices the default choices because the products are form, as Friedrich notes in the quotation above, a default delicious, price competitive, and convenient.54 architecture of food choices without anyone having to adopt any of the perceived social, political, or ethical “baggage” This shift in approach has been accompanied and spurred they or others might assign to veg*ism, or even meat or dairy by an influx of philanthropic interest underpinned by the util- reduction. itarian philosophy of effective altruism (EA). In its response As Paul Shapiro, founder of Compassion Over Killing to animal agriculture, EA seeks to pivot from an absolutist- and author of Clean Meat puts it, weighing advocacy and abolitionist stance that calls for an end to all animal farming social reform against entrepreneurship and technology: and the promotion of veganism to one that reduces animal suffering by improving farmed animal welfare and increasing There’s no doubt to me the former are important the numbers of those who consume less meat and dairy.55,56 (I have, after all, spent the bulk of my career as a policy advocate), but the fact of the matter is, as long climate change as people demand real meat, the market is going Mounting awareness of and alarm about the spread of factory to supply it, and globally demand for meat is only farming has run in tandem with awareness of and concern going up.62 about climate change. The 2006 publication of the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization’s (UNFAO) report These products, therefore, could theoretically bypass Livestock’s Long Shadow57 concluded that animal agriculture’s or even co-opt values such as sociality, familial and cultural contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is significant loyalty, religious fealty, aspirations to wealth and success, and 58 (at least 14.5 percent or 7.1GtCO2 equivalent), perhaps as even masculinity that are still given considerable valence by extensive as that of the global transportation sector. Recently, animal products. Indeed, as some have argued, the social environmental organizations such as Greenpeace,59 the inter- acceptability of plant-based or cellular meat and dairy could national World Wildlife Fund,60 and the Center for Biological provide an entry-point for consumers to retroactively season Diversity61 have called for reducing meat consumption to their food choices with moral clarity. As vegan social theorist conserve wildlife, lower GHG emissions, protect watersheds, Tobias Leenaert remarks: “If it were, for instance, to become and cut down on deforestation and biodiversity loss. profoundly inconvenient or expensive to eat animals, people 5 would eat fewer of them and start to think of themselves as culture and the (more pronounced) conundrums and diffi- the sort of person who eats little or no meat. They’d even be culties it faces in technological and business development, as likely to come up with stories about how they’d wanted to eat well as consumer acceptance. It details those who have raised fewer animals all along.”63 objections to both forms of meat and dairy products because of health and environmental concerns, and concludes with * * * the voices of some of those who are imagining various futures for a combination of plant-based and cellular worlds. The The paper starts with the origins of plant-based and cellular paper ends with recommendations, both general and specific, meat and dairy, and then moves specifically on to the techno- for those within the various industries and also within the logical, business, and consumer-acceptance challenges facing academy and in public policy looking to understand the plant-based products. Following that, it explores cellular agri- ramifications of their development and expansion. the origins of plant-based and cellular meat
s the Good Food Institute’s plant-based mind map64 biochemistry have enabled scientists to understand more Aindicates (below), it is possible to divide plant-based fully how amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and meats into four groups: those that serve the same function salt—the building blocks of meat—interact on a molecular as meat, such as textured vegetable protein (TVP); naturally level to form the flavor and texture that we associate with the occurring foods that mimic meat’s texture (such as the Asian products we call “meat” and “dairy.” Utilizing this science, jackfruit and fungi); analogues that act as a chewy filler but entrepreneurs have developed a range of plant-based meat don’t taste like meat (seitan, tofu, tempeh); and products that and dairy analogues. Businesses such as Beyond Meat, Impos- aim to replicate the total experience of eating a particular sible Foods, Ripple, and JUST (formerly Hampton Creek)— kind of meat in a particular form (such as a fish-stick, shrimp, to name the most well-known—seek to replicate and even or burger). This last category is the focus of this paper. supersede the mouth-feel, bite, texture, creaminess, and taste In only two decades, advances in molecular biology and of animal products.
6 Plant-based milk options at a Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn, NY
These and other companies are both reacting to and in that market, total sales of dairy milk fell in 2018 to $13.6 driving interest among Millennials and Generation Z,65 a billion,74 a drop of $1.1 billion from the year before and symp- significant percentage of whom consider themselves “flexi- tomatic of a ten-year decline.75 tarians.”66 Eighty percent of Millennials eat meat alternatives, The expansion of interest in plant-based alternatives according to 2017 report from Mintel, a market research has not gone unnoticed by food conglomerates, which have company.67 Lux Research reckons that, by 2054, non–animal snapped up plant-based start-ups and through their broader based sources of processed protein will account for a third distribution channels enhanced the products’ visibility and of total protein consumption.68 In June 2019 A. T. Kearney, a sales. In the last decade or so in the non-dairy division alone, global management consulting firm, prognosticated that by General Mills has purchased Kite Hill, a non-dairy cheese 2040, plant-based and cellular animal products would occupy company; French multinational Danone bought WhiteWave, respectively 25 and 40 percent of the global meat market.69 developers of Silk, a non-dairy milk; Valio, a Finnish dairy A more developed and also rapidly expanding sector is producer acquired Oddlygood, a Swedish oat-milk company. plant-based dairy products. Purchases of non-dairy milks in MorningStar Farms, a producer of the “Veggie Cuisine” range the U.S. grew by 61 percent between 2013 and 2018,70 and by of products, is now part of Saputo, a Canadian food giant; and nine percent in 2018 alone.71 As of June 2018, sales stood at a Japanese company Otsuka owns Daiya, creators of a line of $1.6 billion and non-dairy milks constituted 13 percent of the vegan cheeses.76 U.S. milk market,72 with (at the time of writing) soy, hemp, These acquisitions continued into 2018. As the Good coconut, flax, oat, rice, pea, quinoa, and several different nut Food Institute noted: Maple Leaf Foods bought Field Roast milks available at groceries. Total sales of non-dairy cheeses Grain Meat Company; GreenSpace Brands acquired Galaxy in the U.S. were at $124 million by mid-2018 (up 43 percent Nutritional Foods; JAWEA and Good Karma Foods were on the previous year), and global sales are forecast to be purchased by Affinity Beverage Group and Dean Foods, approaching $4 billion by 2024.73 Reflecting a broader shift respectively. This buying spree has been accompanied by
7 considerable investment in recent years. As of the end of since 1835. Stem cells (the cells from which all bodily tissue 2018, over $17 billion had been plowed into the plant-based comes) were derived from embryos in 1981, and human industry, with $673 million pledged in 2018 alone—a 40 embryonic stem cells have been developed in a lab since percent increase over the year before.77 1998.80 Animal tissue was first cultivated in 1971, when a guinea pig’s heart muscle was grown.81 NASA in the U.S. * * * and the Dutch government conducted their research in the early 2000s on developing cultured turkey, fish, and pigs’ cells Accompanying the expanding market for these plant-based respectively.82,83,84 meat and dairy products is the development of cellular In 2003, two Australian artists, Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts, agriculture. The possibility that one could develop animal- kept frog tissue alive in an installation for several weeks, with derived food without raising and slaughtering the animal is a the frog present, before serving the tissue (and not the frog) in consequence of recent advances in cellular biology, although the form of miniature steaks.85 This last experiment suggests Winston Churchill famously prophesied in 1931 that, “we that cellular biology is as much a vehicle for the re-conceptual- shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order ization and re-imagination of our relationship to the “natural” to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately and the non-human world as it is (in the case of NASA) for under a suitable medium.”78 The challenges and opportunities finding practical means of serving animal protein in an alien of growing those “parts” and finding the “suitable medium” environment. Zurr and Catts’ experiment illustrates the diver- have recently garnered considerable scientific and investor sity of meanings that animal life, flesh, and our relationship interest. with both bring to the discussion of cellular meat. Robert Hooke first viewed cells under a microscope in These advances in cellular biology have been made 1665,79 and how they divide and propagate has been known possible by other scientific breakthroughs—such as the
Plant-based meat options at a Food Bazaar Supermarket in Brooklyn, NY 8 Plant-based dairy options at a Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn, NY mapping of the human genome,86 a dramatic fall in the cost Similar opportunities are opening up to generate non–animal of sequencing genomes,87 and synthesizing (“writing”) DNA derived gelatin,97 collagen,98 silk,99 leather,100 and even rhinoc- itself.88 In 2013, biochemist Mark Post of Maastricht Univer- eros horn.101 Some of these are already in the marketplace. In sity in the Netherlands introduced a proof-of-concept cell- November 2018, Perfect Day announced it would join with based beef patty.89 Four years later, Uma Valeti’s Memphis global food giant ADM to scale up its acellular fermentation Meats unveiled a cell-based chicken nugget,90 and Josh of dairy proteins.102 Tetrick’s JUST aims to roll out other cell-based meat prod- As of this writing, interest in and investment goals for ucts shortly. (His promise to deliver these by the end of 2018 plant-based and cellular animal products among entrepre- was unfulfilled.)91 Four Israeli companies are also engaged neurs are mainly driven by altruism and guided by a long- in cellular agriculture—including Aleph Farms, which in term strategy. According to Tobias Citron of Radicle Lab, a December 2018 revealed it had created a cell-based beef- “data visualization” service for scientists and engineers, the steak.92 San Francisco–based Clara Foods plans to launch its founders of most of the nineteen companies involved in cellular egg white by the end of 2019.93 cellular agriculture (as of Spring 2018) are disturbed about In addition to plant- and cell-based meat and dairy prod- the environmental effects of farmed animal agriculture, want ucts, research is continuing into the production of mycoce- to stop animal suffering, and are worried about how to feed lial and acellular versions of the byproducts of animal agri- the estimated 11 billion people that may be alive by 2100.103,104 culture, such as Perfect Day’s utilization of whey and casein. Many of them, according to Radicle Lab, agree with the Acellular agriculture involves using cells or microbes, such as scientific consensus that animal agriculture is a major cause yeast or bacteria, to reproduce fats and proteins, a form of of GHG emissions and that the continuing spread of a meat- manufacturing that is around forty years old. Insulin, which and dairy-intensive diet around the world exacerbates already used to require the slaughter of pigs, is now mainly developed dire predictions about food security, biodiversity, and Earth’s with yeast; rennet, which used to be gathered from calves’ carrying capacity as the effects of climate change take hold.105 stomachs, now involves using genetically engineered bacteria, In their current stages of development, the rhetoric fungi, or yeasts.94 Papain, a meat tenderizer formerly extracted of the plant-based and cellular industries is bifurcated. It from papaya, is now produced enzymatically,95 as is vanillin.96 is simultaneously one of change (new technologies, new 9 and Burger King’s Impossible Whopper116—are developing or extending their line of plant-based food items, either alone or in tandem with other producers. In May 2019, JBS, the world’s largest meat producer, announced it would produce a plant-based burger for sale in Brazil.117 The following month, Tyson declared that it would begin developing its own pea- based meat products.118 At the same time, Perdue launched “Chicken Plus,” nuggets and patties that blend cauliflower, chickpeas, and “plant protein” to reach “flexitarian families.”119 Interest in cellular agriculture has also grown exponen- tially. In 2016, only four companies operated globally; as of the end of 2018, there are, according to the Good Food Institute, twenty-seven cell-based meat and seafood businesses, eleven of which started in 2018 alone.120 Tyson,121 Cargill,122 and PHW, Germany’s largest chicken producer,123 have become investors, as have Bill Gates and Sir Richard Branson,124 and VC companies like Khosla Ventures.125 PHW has put money into the Israeli startup Supermeat. Tyson has hinted that the future of food might be meatless,126 and Branson believes that in thirty years we won’t kill animals for food.127 Although no cellular meat or dairy products are available engineering, new products, and new tastes) and continuity in retail outlets or to eat at restaurants, costs associated with (familiar items, no disruption of values, no need to change their manufacture (still in the lab) have plummeted, although behavior). A similar delicate balance is maintained between they are still far from parity, both in terms of cost of produc- systemic transformation (ending animal agriculture; miti- tion or (except for Finless Foods’ tuna) potential retail price. gating climate change; making meat production “clean,” local, and democratic) and systemic integration (similar regulatory structures; “working alongside” traditional animal-protein providers; the same mass-market production and distribu- tion model; and absorption into the current vertically inte- grated agribusiness structure). As the buying and investing spree suggests, these markets and industries are expanding very fast. In 2018, the U.S. market for plant-based foods grew by 24 percent.106 Impossible Foods had no products available in October 2017; by February 2019, its food was in five thousand restaurants,107 following the introduction of “sliders” into the U.S. White Castle fast- food chain,108 with Red Robin’s 570 burger-and-brew stores adopting the Impossible Burger in April 2019.109 Impossible plans to unveil various food items for the retail market in 2019,110 and Beyond Meat launched a hugely successful IPO on the NASDAQ on May 1, 2019.111 (Impossible is thinking of an IPO later in 2019).112 Finless Foods, working on cellular Bluefin tuna, is aiming to deliver its product—at price parity with the threatened piscine version ($380 per pound)—by the end of 2019.113 Traditional meat companies—such as Nestlé (the Incredible Burger),114 McDonald’s115 (McVegan Burger), 10 the market challenges for plant-based meat and dairy
he market challenges for the plant-based meat and sources for plant-based meats are soy and wheat. This is Tdairy industry are different than those for cellular animal partly a consequence of their widespread availability, given products, although there are continuities and contiguities. The industrial agriculture’s concentration on growing corn for challenges can be separated into three main areas: knowledge ethanol134 or soy,135 wheat,136 and corn for livestock feed in of plant properties, meeting the demands of plant production, large monocultures.137 and understanding how plant proteins interact. The relative dearth of contemporary scientific knowledge surrounding the many other plants that could be used for knowing your plants food (or constituent elements of it) is matched, according to Most of the world’s population currently receives most of its Justin Siegel, an assistant professor of molecular medicine at protein from plant-based sources. A 2010 report from the University of California-Davis, by how little we understand United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) about the health benefits or otherwise of any foods—especially found that globally 57 percent of protein supply came from in comparison to the drugs in our medicine cabinet. He noted plants, with 18 percent from meat, 10 percent from dairy at the 2018 Good Food Institute Conference in San Francisco products, six percent from fish and shellfish, and nine percent that the U.S. National Institutes of Health spent $30 billion on 128 from other animal products. Humankind is aware of around diseases that affected “old white men” (his words) whereas the 30,000 edible plant species on the planet, and yet we grow U.S. Department of Agriculture’s budget for understanding only around 150 of them. Of these, we employ a mere 30 to the health of food was a mere $300 million.138 129 provide 90 percent of our diet. Not only is the plant kingdom clearly ripe for further In fact, three-quarters of the food we eat comes from research let alone utilization for food, but the genomes of 130 only twelve plant and five animal sources; wheat, corn these plants could be altered to develop novel flavors and (maize), and rice form half the protein131 and almost 60 textures.139 Research on plants at universities is at the moment percent of the plant-based calories for the majority of the linked to their utility for our current agricultural system, world’s diets.132 These three are often subject to genomic which is geared toward yield and nutrition as opposed to taste innovation and breeding.133 At the moment, the major or texture.140 Therefore, one challenge is to research and then reimagine the range and varieties of plants that could be used for plant-based meats and milks. Companies are already showing increased interest in a wider variety of plant sources, as well as legumes, fungi, grains, and seeds, for their products.141 Roquette and ADM are investing in a study on peas for use in plant-based meat and dairy,142 and ADM is opening a legume-processing plant in North Dakota to produce pea protein.143 Celeste Holz- Schietinger, director of research at Impossible Foods, is excited about the textural possibilities of the protein RuBisCo, which is found in leaves,144 making it the most abundant protein source on the planet. Students of Peggy Lemaux, a cooperative extension specialist in the department of plant and microbial biology at UC Berkeley, are investigating so-called ancient grains— like sorghum and millet—for their properties.145 David Benzaquen, CEO of Ocean Hugger Foods, which offers plant-based versions of Asian tuna made from tomatoes (see image on next page), is a champion of duckweed (lemna).146 Lupin,147 flaxseed, hemp,148 as well as various nuts, are also being used or seen as possibilities for expanding the varieties of non–animal based meat and dairy products.
11 varieties accounting for 4.2 million tonnes.151 Some farmers in the U.S. upper Midwest are growing more pulses,152 which have the added benefit of fixing nitrogen in the soil and reducing problems with diseases and pests. Furthermore, these plants can be intercropped, and their planting times can be staggered. Substituting one crop for another is not, however, a panacea. According to Scott May, founder of MISTA, an innovation incubator at Givaudin, a flavors and fragrances developer,153 many plant-based products employ only 20 percent of the plant for food, with 80 percent wasted: pea protein, for instance, is utilized for its carbohydrate properties, and the fiber is removed.154 So, increasing the utility of more Ahimi from Ocean Hugger Foods of the plant for other purposes within food creation would be a useful added value, given that soy’s versatility gives it many advantages in current production systems.155 producing the plants Whether Big Ag is prepared to make the switch from The second challenge is a matter of meeting supply and mass monocultures to capture the possibilities of a much changing growing patterns. Since different proteins create more varied plant stock—and how quickly—is an important different textures, and since different global markets require question, especially given the current realities facing farmers. different levels of “meatiness” in their proteins, balancing the These consist of (as of June 2019): government appropriations processability of a product with its flavor and texture cannot to offset the losses caused by the Trump administration’s trade 149 be one-size-fits-all. war with China;156 the difficulties of making money when For example, according to Brian Plattner, director of food growing commodity crops for export;157 the rising expense of and industrial products at Wenger Manufacturing, soybeans land, labor shortages, personal indebtedness that affects many are mainly grown for their oil content, although they might small farmers and contractors,158 and extreme weather events. ultimately be more valuable for their processability, which is not (Opportunities to help farmers are discussed in greater detail yet a priority. Because of consumer apprehensions about celiac in the “Recommendations” section on p. 38.) or gluten allergies, processors such as Wenger are exploring Diversifying and engaging more farmers in this shift other legumes, flax, and potatoes for texturization. In Plattner’s to plant-based proteins for human consumption are needed company, flax and potato are used for binding; and wheat, soy, commercially as well. As Barb Stuckey, president and CIO and pea proteins are employed for of Mattson, a food and beverage extrusion, which is the method that innovator, observes, plant-based squeezes mixed ingredients through producers need to offer a smooth tubes to mold them into shapes.150 supply chain from manufacture to Theoretically, successful exper- retail, since empty shelves mean imentation with and utilization lost revenue for supermarkets and of greater varieties of plants for a producers, and discourage those wider variety of purposes should retail outlets from re-ordering.159 incentivize further research and Companies are already struggling encourage farmers to plant and to meet demand. Beyond Meat was harvest more different types and forced to delay launching its prod- strains of grains, legumes, pulses, ucts in the U.K. in 2018 because it and nuts to supply the plant-protein could not keep up, despite trebling 160 market. Canada, which accounts its capacity. Tofurky, which has for 30 percent of the world’s pea recently seen 25 percent growth year harvests, increased its production of over year, has also been challenged dried peas by 51 percent in 2017, to in production; and Oatly, manufac- 4.8 million tonnes, with yellow pea turers of an oat-based milk, found
12 its product exceeded all sales expectations, leading to some response to consistency, texture, and juiciness, mouth-feel, stores not being able to receive supplies.161 On April 30, 2019, bite, and flavor. Food science also now has clearer ideas of CNN ran a story that the country was running out of Impos- how and whether ingredients chosen for certain purposes sible Burgers, following the announcement of Impossible’s release their desired properties at the right time and in the deal to sell its burgers in 7,300 Burger King locations around right order during the cooking process. the U.S.162 In this case, increasing computational sophistication and scientific knowledge about food have served to reveal making plants taste good just how complex and multi-dimensional are our sensory and Chemical engineering and computer technology can now neurological experiences of eating food. One challenge within quantify the molecular structures of why something may taste plant-based cuisine is that in the course of manufacture and good or bad, and allow combinations of chemicals to mimic cooking, chemicals and proteins may interact to inhibit the flavors and smells found in other substances.179 The result release of desired flavors and smells or do so in a manner is a greater understanding of the complexity of the human that is picked up by our nose and palate as an “off-note”—
to be vegan or not to be vegan When it comes to consumer acceptance of plant-based general manager of Springboard Brands at the Kraft Heinz meats and dairy, considerable angst163 exists over the Company, to emphasize the long-standing commitment of use of the “v” word. Some surveys have shown negative Kraft’s venerable Boca Burgers to plant-based eating, by consumer attitudes toward the term and those who label placing the word vegan prominently on the packaging.175 themselves as such.164 Those working in marketing, such As if to confirm the confusion around the impact of as Barb Stuckey of Mattson, fear the vegan label drives the “v” word, a 2019 Faunalytics survey of meat-eaters away “flexitarian” consumers by making them assume the discovered that vegan was considered more attractive product is only for vegans, and that because it is labeled a descriptor than plant-based among most consumers, vegan, the product must taste less than delicious.165 although the notably un-descriptive term feel-good Guaranteeing access to the non-vegan market is not outperformed both, and direct protein appealed most a trivial matter (70 percent of Beyond Burger’s consumers to young men. The survey concluded that different audi- aren’t vegetarian or vegan),166 especially given the food ences would require different approaches and potentially industry is grappling with a proliferation of actual or different terms (a nightmare for product manufacturers), conceptual labels for products with fewer or no animal but that vegan might not be as toxic in the marketplace as ingredients, or differing animal welfare standards.167 For some had thought.176,177 some, veganism is a byword for faddishness and dilettan- Whether or not to use the word vegan reflects divi- tism.168 Some doctors have criticized the term vegan as sions and different perspectives between and within the not necessarily descriptive of a healthy diet (Oreo cookies, plant-based and cellular meat spheres. As for whether soda, and French fries, after all, contain no animal prod- or not cellular meat or dairy can be considered vegan, or ucts). Certain “vegan” physicians prefer to describe their whether it matters at all: since neither can yet be made diet as “whole-food, plant-based” (WFPB).169 This is also without an animal being harmed or killed at some point not a matter of semantics. Unfortunately, as vegan nutri- in the process, this argument is, for the moment, moot. tionist Ginny Messina has observed, some vegan diets As for their health profile: even without the animal-based may be a cover for an eating disorder, if the diet is unnec- medium in which they are currently grown (see “Terms essarily restrictive of essential nutrients.170,171 of Reference” on p. 18), these products are likely to By contrast, some vegans have questioned the use contain cholesterol and some form of saturated fat, and of WFPB because it doesn’t necessarily exclude animal may indeed have to be treated with antibiotics to prevent products.172 They have observed that veganism is as much bacterial infection in their production.178 It’s possible that a commitment to a set of values as it is a dietary habit or once cellular agriculture becomes a reality, the defini- lifestyle choice. They point out that veganism has become tion of vegan as “free of animal derivatives” may shift to fashionable,173,174 and offers a conveniently clear message “animal-free”—reflecting the fact that the meat and dairy to consumers about ingredients. Certainly, this last product no longer depends on the death or suffering of observation lies behind the decision by Sergio Eleuterio, the animal from which it was derived. l
13 such as “grassiness” or mealiness.180 Celeste Holz-Schietinger These vagaries form one reason why artificial intelligence of Impossible Foods notes that many different compounds (AI) and predictive analytics (such as that being implemented operative within animal flesh are not intrinsic to meat: it’s by Scott May at MISTA, the innovation incubator) or the combination of these compounds at the correct tempera- psychophysics (a particular interest of Lav Varshney, assistant ture that creates the experience of “meat.”181 “Off-notes” can professor of electrical and computer engineering at the emerge from particular plants when cooked or processed at University of Illinois) are being employed to quantify sensory various temperatures, and from when they’re combined. For responses to flavors and taste perceptions in a manner that instance, some proteins lead to an unpleasant taste or aroma more accurately reflect customers’ physiological reactions.185 that we might define as earthy, beany, green, cardboard-y, Whether it’s possible to separate our predisposition to consider bitter, astringent, or chalky.182 (See image below.) a food “needing” to taste a certain way because of its social Conventional breeding for the removal of “off-notes” identity from any neurochemical disgust or revulsion we may or addition of desirable properties can take years. Editing have at how a food looks, or its supposed source, is a matter the plant’s genome, however, as plant and microbial biolo- of contention. For Varshney, the potato (see “Pomme de Terre, gist Peggy Lemaux has observed, is a much faster and more Anyone?” on p. 15) provides an object lesson on the limitations efficient means of shaping a particular crop, especially of data in the context of perceptual notions of the suitability or as the genome sequences for commonly used crops are otherwise of a certain food within a social structure.186 already known.183 Indeed, given what remains to be discov- ered about plants, maintaining crop genetic diversity may consumer acceptance be vital to locating possible plant sources for many sorts of Surveys have suggested that most purchasers of plant-based tastes, textures, and flavors—as well as providing more varied meat and dairy products are those who wish to eat less meat sources for the food products themselves. rather than no meat at all.190 Judging by the growth in the Such is the sensitivity of human organs of taste and marketplace, it would appear that consumers are neither smell that we can discern “off-notes” where scientific readings confused that the products aren’t animal-based nor particu- determine no difference. Moreover, we are only beginning larly worried about how closely aligned these products are to to learn how our brain processes the information it receives the “real” thing.191 (For efforts by animal agriculture to rede- from food receptors in the mouth, and that receptor sensi- fine meat and dairy products, see “Regulatory Challenges” tivity isn’t necessarily matched by our ability to describe accu- and “What Is Meat and Dairy?” in the cellular agriculture rately just how the item is “off.”184 portion of this paper.)
Photograph of a Slide from the Presentation of Mark Matlock, Senior Vice-President of Food Research at ADM, at the 2018 Good Food Institute Conference, San Francisco
14 Although the growth in plant-based meat and dairy pomme de terre, anyone? products may reflect a greater degree of consumer interest in and comfort with plant and dairy analogues of various The potato, intro- kinds, those who eat animal products are often uninformed duced into Europe and contrarian in their attitudes, to say the least. In a 2017 from South America systematic review of consumer perception and behavior on in the 1500s, was sustainable protein consumption, the authors concluded that long considered consumers didn’t understand the effects of meat consumption a staple source of and production on the environment. When they were told food in France . . . for about it, most were unwilling to change their meat habits and pigs. French cuisine didn’t want to replace conventional meat either with substi- resisted it until tutes, cellular meat, or insects.192 scientist Antoine- As Haley Swartz, research program coordinator for the Augustin Parmen- Johns Hopkins University’s Berman Institute of Bioethics, tier (1737–1813),187 suggests, mirroring other observers in this space, environ- captured in the Seven Years War and forced to mental messages may not resonate with consumers focused on eat potatoes in prison, promoted it as a healthful taste, price, and convenience or preoccupied with perceived addition to the French diet in his post-release 1789 threats to their freedom of choice or the familial, social, and volume on the potato, sweet potato, and Jerusalem other associations they make with meat.193 artichoke.188 This resistance might partly be due to the failure to Despite Parmentier’s best efforts to cultivate disaggregate the food item. In considering consumer accep- the potato’s fashionability among the rich and tance of a plant-based “substitute,” it is tempting to think of famous, the French public would not be persuaded. the patty, sausage, or mince; wheel, spread, or slice; or drink Finally, in 1794, La Cuisinière Républicaine, a cook- or fermented dairy product as more-or-less self-contained book written by one Madame Merigot, illustrated components of a meal. Yet, as food marketers have reminded many ways to prepare the vegetable. The tuber’s us, the food landscape has been diversifying for decades. popularity, associated with the virtues of repub- We now consume food in many different forms, on different licanism, finally overturned French reluctance to occasions, and for different reasons: from snacks to family embrace the potato. dinners, impulse purchases to institutional cuisine. This story illustrates the challenges facing In considering how plant-based products might enter the manufacturers. A food’s edibility depends on cate- marketplace, therefore, Barb Stuckey of Mattson suggests that gories of appropriateness,189 social acceptability, manufacturers move away from thinking of the center of the and demonstrated utility—at a remove if not plate as the locus of change and consider other means of deliv- wholly divorced from price, taste, or availability; ering a meal: prepared foods and snacks, such as soup, pizza, supposed exclusivity or class affiliation; or, for that or sandwiches.194 For Alison Rabschnuk, leader of corporate matter, a nation’s perception of its food culture. engagement at the Good Food Institute, shelf-stable products Indeed, the thing itself may, in essence, be and the refrigerated section of the grocery store offer great irrelevant. Potatoes weren’t novel, they were market potential, as does supplying food-service companies known not to be harmful, and many people ate rather than retail outlets, institutional food providers rather them—except the French. Lav Varshney argues than restaurants, and ingredients rather than products.195 that Madame Merigot’s cookbook took the three This last category (ingredients rather than products) elements of consumer adoption (pleasantness, presents an interesting opportunity to animal-meat suppliers, novelty, and familiarity) and created a narrative path which has not gone unnoticed by some in the industry. for the French public to overcome their resistance According to meat scientist Benji Mikel, speaking at the to adoption. How and whether plant-based and/ 2018 New Harvest Conference at MIT, once an animal dies or cellular meat and dairy products need to do the the flesh begins to dry, grow hard, decay, and lose color. To same remains an open question (see “Consumer compensate for these biological processes, the meat industry Acceptance”). l marinates the flesh in water and sodium phosphate and adds modified food starch, soy protein isolate, carrageenan, gums,
15 feedstuff providers to recognize the changes in the food land- scape and not ignore them. Chuck Jolley, president of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame, writing in Feedstuffs magazine, compares cellular meat to the technology of the personal computer and the iPhone. Echoing Nick Fiddes’ thoughts about meat’s symbolic weight, as well as the claims of meat as essential, natural, and “real,” Jolley advises those in conven- tional animal agriculture to resist the temptation to use data or science to combat the rise of plant-based and cellular meat products:
Faux burgers are here to stay. It’s [sic] a product that is doing very well at finding its niche in the market and it will prove to be significant. Dismiss it at your own peril. Instead, get busy reminding millions why the real thing is tastier and better for you. One more thing: Don’t fight it with facts. Food is an emotional thing.198
In a similar vein to Jolley’s critique, some “natural” diet and public health advocates have argued against what they see as a further and unnecessary technologization of plant seasonings, and flavorings to make meat resemble what foods. At the 2018 Good Food Institute Conference, Dr. consumers expect it to look like, and to help it last longer and Dean Ornish, president and founder of the nonprofit Preven- taste better.196 So much, one might add, for the “naturalness” tive Medicine Research Institute, objected to Impossible or even “whole-food” quality of meat! Foods employing genetically modified soyleghemoglobin to As Mikel points out, it’s possible that plant-based ingredi- deliver heme to its burger.199 Ornish stated that although he ents might provide additional components for meat products understood that the overall health outcomes for consumers and thus reduce the amount of meat in each meat product, as eating plant-based burgers might be better than if they ate is the aim of the Better Meat Company, co, which according the animal-based versions, he (and others) noted studies that to its website (https://www.bettermeat.co/) is “a business-to- show that heme may increase the risk of cancer and Type-II business company that helps institutional food sellers boost diabetes,200 and may also be an allergen.201 their meat products by using less meat and more plants.” At a sustainable foods conference in January 2018, Such ingredients might, Mikel has observed, extend meat’s Impossible was criticized for rushing its product to market shelf life, and provide added tastes, textures, and colors that before a full safety test on the product was carried out.202 would enable some meat-production companies to remain in In July of that year, the FDA, after raising initial concerns business and even expand into new markets, which is not the about heme,203 indicated to Impossible that it considered stated aim of the Better Meat Company. heme GRAS (“generally recognized as safe”) and thus was not As Mikel has suggested, and as Lauren Sammel, a food required to undergo thorough testing.204 Ironically, heme, an scientist at Johnsonville, a sausage-making company, noted essential protein found mainly in meat, delivers iron,205 and it at the 2018 Good Food Institute Conference, there are many is this which gives the Impossible Burger its slightly metallic “consumer-facing” problems with current meat production taste, and thus makes it familiar to meat eaters. Furthermore, that cellular biology and plant-based meat production could, whereas the yeast that delivers the protein is genetically modi- theoretically, address, or vice versa. These are quality defects, fied, in a manner similar to the acellular production of insulin shelf life and oxidation, color and color stability, fat supply, and rennet, the burger itself is not206—or at least wasn’t until the physical state of the muscle, the consistency of the raw Impossible decided in May 2019 to use GM soy in its produc- material, the functional ingredients, and labor shortages.197 tion. Interestingly, some farmers within current animal agri- The safety, genetic modification, and desirability or culture operations are warning their fellow ranchers and otherwise of non–farmed animal meat and dairy products 16 come into greater focus in the cellular agriculture section of tural system is overly dependent on a genetic or molecular this paper (below). However, because plant-based meat and technology that poses too many risks to the environment, dairy products are all processed—with potentially added the human biome, and food sovereignty. In fact, the concen- salt, sugar, and various chemicals—they are by definition at tration on burgers, dogs, and other forms of fast food might a remove from WFPB diets recommended by certain doctors further cement the idea—inherent in this very paper’s raison and nutritionists. Although, they may be considered useful, d’être—that “vegan food” is, by definition, processed food that as Ornish notes, for those in “transition,” it is not a given that acts analogously as a substitute for an animal-based default. plant-based burgers and milks will encourage people either Here, too, we see the strange dialectic between meat- to consume less farmed animal meat or dairy overall, or to eaters and some vegans when it comes to what “vegan food” shift to a whole-foods, plant-based diet to reduce their risk is or is not. When former Trump White House staffer Sebas- of non-communicable diseases. Indeed, although processed tian Gorka told the Conservative Political Action Conference plant-based meat and dairy products may contain more fiber, (CPAC) in Washington, DC, in March 2019, that Demo- more protein, and less fat than their animal-based counter- crats “want to take away your hamburgers,”213 he was aiming parts,207 health profiles of some plant-based meats and dairy to define efforts to combat climate change by reducing the may be less nutritious than the analogues they mimic—a consumption of beef as an anti-patriotic destruction of liberty function not merely of their taste profile but their identity in by the nanny state. the marketplace as “fast” or “comfort” food.208 Yet, as Carol Adams reveals in Burger, the composition, A further consumer challenge is that these products shape, delivery method (on a bun), and even regional origin enter a fast-food landscape defined by monocultures. One of this supposedly quintessential and untouchable American reason why corn, wheat, and food were all up for grabs when soy are relatively inexpensive the patty was developed at the to produce is because of the turn of the twentieth century. direct and indirect subsidies These burgers were, from the that encourage their growth, outset, subject to the manipula- and the relatively few subsi- tions of marketing, condiments, dies provided to fruit and and luck, before they—like vegetable farmers.209 Soy, the potato with the French— wheat, and corn, which received the imprimatur of (unlike many fruits and the people to make a burger vegetables) can be harvested the quintessentially republican by machines and therefore (and, to Gorka, Republican) don’t require the additional meal.214 expense of manual labor, So, both plant-based burger are also used in part for companies and those on the processed foods such as high “right” who wish to stop them, fructose corn syrup or feed are staking their claims to iconic for animals. foods that seem at once already These, respectively, have defined and yet, as Adams illus- been shown to contribute to obesity and Type-II diabetes, and trates, their constituent parts are as inherently and multiva- (when delivered in meat and dairy products) cardiovascular lently malleable as, we might say, America itself. It’s a further disease and colon cancer.210 In turn, these non-communicable irony that, in his evocation, Gorka echoes whole foods advo- diseases add considerably to the costs to public health, which cates in arguing for food sovereignty as an essential, partic- are not reflected in the price-points of the products that ular identity against liberal, technologized multiculturalism. people buy.211,212 These anxieties and competing goals are more concen- This paper has already noted that most of the world gets trated in the cellular agriculture space. However, since several its protein from plant-based sources, and that most of those of the companies producing plant-based substitutes are plant-based sources are relatively unprocessed. As you will developing (or could develop) cellular versions, the plant- read later, the plant-based and putative cellular products don’t based space is not immune to the criticisms leveled at cellular necessarily address the fears of those who believe the agricul- agriculture.
17 terms of reference: clean, cellular, craft?
What to call animal cells propagated in a medium is a point assumptions about the amount or role of technology of contention, both inside and outside the industry. This (genetic, chemical, industrial, or electronic) in the current paper uses cellular meat or cellular dairy to describe the food system are often inconsistent or inaccurate,221 results of this process, and farmed animal or conventional especially given how loosely or misleadingly terms such animal meat or dairy for the products of present-day ani- as natural, certified humane, and organic are applied mal agricultural practices. The termcellular agriculture can to products.222 This misplaced notion of the natural is refer both to animal cells in a medium, or proteins of ani- particularly relevant given the well-documented genetic mal origin “brewed” using a medium such as yeast, which distortion of farmed animals’ bodies; their confinement this paper calls acellular agriculture. Technically, of course, inside factory farms; and the cocktail of hormones and all animal products are cellular and, at the moment, the antibiotics they are fed before they are slaughtered.223 medium for cellular meat and dairy consists mainly of fetal Cellular does retain a futuristic quality that may be attrac- bovine serum (FBS), the source for which currently involves tive to early adopters and within the industry, although it the death of an animal. So, no cellular meat products as of can strike others as too clinical and technological and at a writing are vegan, under the loos- far remove from the notion of est definition of the term. food as a warm and nourishing Some, for instance the symbol of home.224 Good Food Institute, prefer the Perceptions of the cellular word clean215—a nod to the process as lab-based are only assumption that the manufac- accurate in so far as the industry ture of cellular animal meat and is in its early, developmental- dairy will be less environmen- technology stages.225 Industry tally polluting and bloody. The analyst Jack Bobo has suggested term carries the meaning that, employing the term craft226 in unlike conventional animal agri- Ann Veneman with Ezra Klein of Vox at the 2018 order to align the products and Good Food Institute Conference, San Francisco culture, neither the process nor their putative ultimate manu- product will be exposed to gut pathogens (such as E. coli, facturing process with artisanal, regional, and suppos- salmonella, and campylobacter) and will require fewer edly less impersonal or mechanized processes, such as antibiotics or growth hormones. Furthermore, its propo- brewing and cheese making. The term cultured might be nents argue that its creation is likely to be more trans- similarly applied. However, it comes with its own issues: parent, since cellular meat and dairy won’t be subject to a fermenting process does not accurately reflect the the “ag-gag” laws that make it illegal in some U.S. states process yet for all products, and surveys have suggested to film, or take photographs or audio recordings, inside that consumers associate cultured with a product that has CAFOs or slaughterhouses.216 been processed or de-naturalized [sic].227 Both cultured Understandably, some in conventional animal agricul- and craft could send a signal to the market that products ture, such as farmed animal veterinarian Cody Creelman217 under these labels are niche and not for the ordinary omni- and former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman218 vore: these may lend them cachet and appeal even as they (see image), have bridled at the suggestion that animal agri- might restrict their widespread adoption. culture and its products aren’t hygienic. Some in the cellular It is already being argued in the cellular meat space agriculture sphere, such as Mark Post of Mosa Meat219 and that, beyond the nomenclatures the FDA and USDA (see Uma Valeti of Memphis Meats,220 argue that the term clean “Regulatory Challenges”) may assign to these products, unnecessarily labels the product with an emotion that may branding and marketing may be more significant for prove galvanizing internally but might not be appropriate for consumer acceptability than terms that define the prod- neutralizing opposition outside the industry. uct’s provenance and means of manufacture.228 Until Unlike terms such as lab-grown, in vitro, bio, such processes are considered safe, normative, and wide- synthetic, or Frankenmeat, cellular conjures fewer images spread, however, terms such as cellular or cell-based have of scientists or their chimeras running amok. Consumer the advantages of being accurate and relatively neutral. l
18 the challenges for cellular agriculture
alone an interested party. t the time of writing, no cellular meat or dairy products technological challenges Aare in the marketplace—either in retail, restaurants, or The technological challenges for cellular meat and dairy in the food service industry. Neither Memphis Meat’s chicken remain formidable, says Kate Krueger, research director at strips nor JUST’s chicken nuggets have yet to hit the shelves New Harvest. Cellular agriculture, she notes, has more hurdles or restaurants, and you can taste New Age Meats sausages, as to surmount than other areas of scientific investigation because far as is known, only in the lab.229,230,231 of a lack of standardized approach from either government or As far as is known is a neces- university funding to conduct this research. sary caveat in reflecting on this Then there is the basal industry at this time. The techno- knowledge from which cellular logical challenges remain signifi- biologists can work. Even cant—not least because the basic though cellular biology has been and developmental science is known for centuries, Krueger occurring at the same time as observes, very little study has private money and commercial been undertaken on the cells 233 interests are applying pressure to of animals used for food. move from open-source, collab- Until very recently, for instance, orative research toward patent- cellular and molecular biology or trademark-protected tech- has largely centered on potential nologies. Commercial scaling medical uses (such as growing for production will likely mean skin for grafts or replacement further technological modifica- organs), and scientists working in tions that may require different medicine may not be interested engineering skills beyond the personally, intellectually, or lab. Questions over how these financially in moving into a products will be regulated and food space—even though they what they can be called; how are much-needed and in short much pushback or cooperation the industry can expect from supply. The website Clean Meat lists current job openings in a 234 conventional animal agriculture; and suspicions over the number of cellular companies, and they invariably involve safety or what might be termed the “propriety” of cellular biologists, bioprocessors, various sorts of engineers, and food agriculture are occurring simultaneously. These exist inde- scientists. pendently of any consumer resistance that may arise once Beyond these meta-challenges, continues Krueger, are these products reach the market. the specifics of the processes themselves: tweaking cells so Although the cellular agriculture space is aware of they proliferate and differentiate (become muscle) faster and these contradictory impulses, and is attempting to accom- at scale; constructing a more efficient bioreactor for three- modate them all, the Umwelt—to use semiotician Jakob von dimensional muscle growth; isolating, for instance, muscle Uexküll’s word to describe the environment experienced cells from pigs to work on cellular pork (the task of New Age 235 by an organism232—is an occasionally whiplash-inducing Meats); researching structures for the meat to grow on and mix of scientific caution and giddy futurist imaginings; within; and making the whole process cost-effective. Indeed, stern admonitions for corporate responsibility and sales, the painstaking and expensive work of growing cells is itself marketing, and investment pitches; and moral fervor and ripe for disruption. Biocellion, a virtual experiment simulator, a naked mercenary appeal to acquire a slice of the multi- is endeavoring to reduce the cost of developing cellular meat billion-dollar global food market. Although a necessary through computer-aided design to create cheaper and more 236 task, separating what is true from what is probable, possible, efficient experiments. or fantastical can be difficult for an outside observer, let As for the research itself, the challenges can be disaggre- gated into media, scaffolding, and the bioreactor.
19 Clean Meat Production at Scale. Photograph of Slide from a Presentation by Elizabeth Specht, GFI’s Senior Scientist, at the Good Food Institute Conference, San Francisco, October 2018
A Happy Medium? So, the race to find a cheap, clean, and renewable source According to Kate Krueger, in order for animal cells to of non–animal derived serum is on, since the cost of sourcing develop, you need salts and sugars, vitamins and minerals, and accessing enough of the current media and growth protein, fats, cholesterol, hormones, and specialized proteins. factors are the principle reason why the price of cellular The medium used to grow animal-cell culture for now meat is prohibitively high. These costs are likely to decrease consists of a combination of these and fetal bovine serum once appropriate media and growth factors have been identi- (FBS). FBS itself is made up of hormones, albumins, globu- fied and can be generated at scale to meet the production of lins, attachment and regulatory proteins (such as growth animal flesh rather than lab-based applications.242 How fast factors), and various other proteins. FBS is expensive to use, and how much they will decrease are open questions. not fully defined, there are variations within batches because In spite of these difficulties, it’s clear that the range of it’s animal-derived, and it is difficult to source at scale.237 potential media is growing. Some have suggested fungal To grow the single burger produced by Mark Post in 2013, extracts and even Gatorade as candidates!243 Another possi- for instance, required hundreds of individual cell-growing bility is using yeast (Finless Foods’ apparent formulation).244 dishes, and cost $300,000. Triton Algae Innovations245 is attempting to make animal Although it is possible to conduct a biopsy on an animal proteins from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (“Chlamy”), a to remove a cell-line (whether an embryonic stem cell or fully single-cell green alga that tastes like sweet parsley. Chlamy, differentiated muscle cells) without harming that animal, which is ubiquitous throughout the world, has yet to be scaled scientists appear to agree that finding a medium that doesn’t and is presently available only as a dietary supplement (it involve the death of an animal is essential if cellular agricul- contains 847 percent of the recommended daily amount of ture is to make sense as an alternative to conventional animal Omega-3 fatty acids). Chlamy, claims Xun Wang, the presi- agriculture. Whereas some sera, such as Ultroser, exist as a dent and CEO of Triton, may also be a good basal feedstock substitute for FBS,238 these, says Krueger, are also medical for cellular meat.246 grade, proprietary, cell-specific, and expensive.239 Still another option, pioneered by futurist engineer Yuki Some companies, like Memphis Meats,240 Mosa Meat, Hanyu of Integriculture is to use cellular biology to bypass the and JUST,241 are claiming they have found or have developed a serum and simply grow the animal organ—such as the liver— serum that either uses much less FBS or is synthetic or plant- that produces the serum in the first place.247 His company based. However, much of the information surrounding the aims to bring cellular foie gras to market by 2021.248 exact composition of these sera is, perhaps understandably Once more, caution is required in imagining the ideal given its potential market value, a closely guarded secret, and feedstock. The reproduction of cells involves many different no serum has emerged either as a proof-of-concept or for sale processes: myogenesis (the development of skeletal muscle that could be categorized as “vegan” in terms of its production. cells), vasculogenesis (the production of endothelial cells),
20 and adipogenesis, which marbles meat with fat. (See illustra- the risk of contamination, so sterilizing bioreactors might be tion on p. 22.) Finally, comes the extrusion or stereolithog- necessary, even with a “clean” product such as cellular meat. raphy (a form of 3-D printing), or a combination of the two.249 Different media may “taint” the meat with unwelcome flavors
These procedures may not only require their own media and aromas. Ironically, it’s possible that vitamin B12 and iron formulation but may need to be altered for different meat may need to be added to the media to allow cellular meat to outcomes; muscle cells at various stages may require different retain the properties common to farmed animal meat, and temperatures and levels of stimulation to ensure they are that are essential in a human diet.251 properly “exercised” and don’t atrophy and die. All these technical challenges—both known and Furthermore, write Kadim et al: unknown—may require phasing in the use of cellular agri- cultural products more slowly, and in stages. Among others, The removal of waste products including carbon New Harvest fellow Jessica Krieger at Kent State University dioxide and lactate will also be necessary. . . . In has suggested that, initially, animal cells might be additives the conversion of conventional muscle to meat the for plant-based products before pure animal-cell products metabolic processes include anaerobic glucolysis, are created, with the final development being full-animal lactic acid accumulation, a decrease in pH, protein products.252 denaturation and enzymatic proteolysis. . . . These changes influence the texture, taste and appearance If You Build It, Will They Proliferate? of meat, so it is likely that it will be necessary to The second technological issue is the nature of the struc- ensure that comparable processes occur in cultured ture upon and within which those propagated cells begin meat after harvest.250 to form muscle tissue: a structure usually called scaffolding. The Good Food Institute’s “mindmap”253 for cellular agricul- It is, therefore, safe to say that operations at scale will ture (below) identifies several components for scaffolding. It almost certainly be different from operations in the lab, in ways must be porous enough to allow vascularization (the “veins” that may be unforeseeable. Recycling media to avoid or lower that would let the serum perfuse the muscle tissue, as blood the amount of waste produced and reduce cost may increase does in the body). It needs a design and a biodegradability
21 such that meat is formed with the desirable consistency and without elements of the scaffolding negatively affecting that taste or texture. The scaffolding could contain suspen- sion microcarriers, like polymer beads, that would allow the individual muscle fibers to develop; and hydrogels, perhaps from algae, mycelium, or cellulose, that would let muscle cells self-organize into tight fibers, and within which they could be stimulated to grow.254 Polymer beads in suspension might be suitable for generating ground-meat products,255 but whole cuts will require a more robust scaffold. Mycelium (the vegetative part of fungus) might be optimal in this space. Ecovative Design is using mycelium to manufacture biodegradable packaging; however, it hopes to use mycelium as scaffolding for cellular leather, bone, and meat, as well as (through Bolt Threads) a leather-like fabric.256 Three New Harvest fellows are currently researching Asian pears, carrots, rose petals, asparagus, and mushrooms as potential scaffolding.257 Plants offer an attractive option for scaffolding. Engi- neers in the U.K. are using grass to grow animal cells.258 Glenn Gaudette, a tissue engineer and professor of biomedical engi- neering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, has demonstrated how spinach leaves, with their DNA removed, provide a transparent vascular system that, much like the human one, can supply nutrients through porous veins to the muscle cells that form around it. With calcium inserted into the system one can stimulate an electrochemical reaction that pumps those nutrients through the veins of the leaf.259 Gaudette’s background, expertise, and interest in collab- oration illustrate the debt to, potential crossover from, and integration that cellular meat can share with new therapeutic models of cellular biology (beyond artificial valves or pigs’ hearts). Grass and spinach leaves are obviously abundant, adaptable, variable, and health-supporting, and may well be cheaper than scaffolding from synthetic materials.260
Scaling It Up Third, there are questions over the nature of the design of the “bioreactor” in which the cells will be grown at scale. Some progress has been made in moving from tiered culture flasks to first- and second-stage bioreactors. But these remain on a small scale. Moreover, warns Kate Krueger of New Harvest,261 A flow diagram illustrating in general terms some eventual bioreactors may look very different from the “fermen- of the steps in the production of a cultured meat tation” tanks that cellular agriculture visionaries are touting. et al. product. From Kadim, Isam T. “Cultured Meat Jessica Krieger is developing (along with other New from Muscle Stem Cells: A Review of Challenges and Harvest engineers) a bioreactor with a system that pumps Prospects.” Journal of Integrative Agriculture (2015) 14(2): 222–233. nutrients and artificial blood into the developing cells and removes waste, thus “exercising” the muscle and helping it grow. The hope is to increase the amount of tissue and the
22 speed at which it is developed.262 Finally, leaving the labora- Furthermore, it’s likely that within the next few years, the tories and animal-science departments in which these labs necessity of accessing proprietary technologies and patenting are currently situated, and moving toward a self-contained, or trademarking will lead to some companies requiring more engineered system at scale present challenges both known capitalization, merging, being purchased by pre-existing and not-yet-addressed, and unknown and therefore not-yet- protein suppliers, or failing altogether because of over- addressable. specialization or the lack of it. Other companies may choose Brian Spears of New Age Meats is a chemical engineer to concentrate on supplying businesses with constituent parts employing an integrated, interdisciplinary approach to data and processes of the assembly chain (including additional to develop automated cell-line structures and mini bioreac- cellular components for farmed animal meat products, or tors. He is skeptical about the timeframes suggested by some plant-based additives for cellular meat products).267 in the industry,263 as well as cautious about the challenges of Refining the ability of yeast, bacteria, and enzymes to scaling-up. He echoes Adam Flynn’s reservations (see “The create biomaterials and animal byproducts (acellular agri- Naysayer” on p. 24) about the difference between lab and culture) may represent a surer and quicker way to market, commercial production: and thus be a timelier return on investment. However, these biomaterials might ultimately have less market potential, Many of [the cellular meat companies] are still taking although not necessarily be less profitable, than developing a an academic approach, saying, “We’ll perfect this in cellular fish or meat product.268 Other companies may move the lab and then we scale,” rather than approaching away from retail and direct-to-consumer markets into insti- this as an industrial automation project. Cells don’t tutional sales. behave the same way in the 2D environment vs. a 3D Indeed, although large protein providers such as Tyson environment, so you have to address the late stage and Cargill at the moment remain only investors in cellular questions earlier.264 meat companies, a consequence according to David Benza- quen (at least in part) of risk aversion among current share- bringing the meat to market holders,269 it seems probable that once the technological issues Commercial challenges can be found at every stage of the have been solved, these multinationals will either purchase manufacturing process. the technology, hire its developers, or replicate the technology For all the hoopla surrounding cellular agriculture, by within the company. the latter half of 2018, according to Justin Kolbeck, CEO of This consolidation might occur at the same time as Wild Type, a cellular salmon company, fewer than 150 people another round of major investment responds to actual prod- were developing cell-based meat. Most were employed as ucts and processes at market readiness, even if at high prices scientists, with vast areas of the business awaiting scientific or with limited availability. (Indeed, the exclusivity and exploration let alone commercial exploitation.265 Isha Datar, premium status afforded by the products may make them CEO of New Harvest, echoed this challenge in a podcast aired attractive to some consumers.)270 The attractions for any in May 27, 2018. Creating tissue culture in vitro was only a business are obvious: Tobias Citron of Radicle Lab has esti- decade old, she said; engineers whose experiences were with mated the total addressable market for the full replacement human and animal tissues for scientific purposes weren’t of animal products might be $US1.6 trillion; even the market working with cells that mattered for cultured meat. Food that is immediately in reach represents a $US44-billion science labs didn’t have a lot of experience with tissue-culture opportunity.271 capabilities—except on medical applications on a small scale, Tyson, the largest processor and marketer of meat in the rather than delicious, inexpensive, and sustainable cells in United States, has already indicated its competitive advan- great quantity for food.266 tages in this space. Given the challenges facing any company These realities in turn suggest that the technological to expand manufacturing capacities, lock in feed supply, meet challenges might be harder to overcome, given pressure from exponentially increasing demand, and deliver a consistent investors to move scientists from collaborating and sharing product over a wide geographic area, cellular agriculture research to patenting products and processes, and then may require the scale that a corporate agribusiness like Tyson commercializing ingredients, design, and products. Such provides to meet market and consumer expectations. In turn, pressures will by default complicate current calls for trans- such economies of scale may be required to lower costs of parency, the publication of open-source research, and third- manufacturing272 so products achieve parity with those of party corroborative analysis. conventionally farmed animal meat and dairy.
23 the naysayer For Adam Flynn,273 the founder of ForeLight, which is become rather than the bioreactor it is destined to be engaged in creating “naturally derived replacements grown in. for synthetic ingredients used in the food & beverage, Even beyond these systemic difficulties, Flynn animal feed, health and cosmetic industries,” employing believed that the amount of private capital available to blue-green algae and other photosynthetic organisms, cellular start-ups at the moment (just under a billion the entire mindset of the current cellular agriculture dollars at the time of writing) was woefully inadequate. industry is a problem. He said that the industry required $US12 billion, as well Based on his own knowledge of the failures of as the technical skills and all-round capacities of major the algal biofuel industry to disrupt the fossil fuels corporations or governments, if it was to meet the chal- industry,274 Flynn told the 2018 New Harvest Conference lenges of delivery and performance at scale. at MIT that he was trou- For Flynn, the cellular bled that cellular agricul- For Flynn, the cellular agriculture community was too agriculture community ture, like biofuels, was supportive and not critical enough of itself—either in was too supportive and making huge claims about ensuring that bad ideas aren’t funded or that devel- not critical enough of solving problems orders opment is thought through clearly. itself—either in ensuring of magnitude beyond its that bad ideas weren’t current technological or funded or that develop- business-scale capabilities. For Flynn, cellular agriculture ment was thought through clearly. He feared that the had many applications for its emerging technologies that premature launch of a product that was either unsafe or a were more immediately in reach and profitable than huge monetary loss for investors could hold back market building a T-bone steak. acceptance or development for a decade or longer. It would, he considered, be more prudent, respon- His unease was shared. Ricardo San Martin, research sible, and strategic to develop technical solutions, exper- director of the Alternative Meat Program at the Sutardja tise, and capacity, as well as earning revenue, at each Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology at UC stage of the process. For instance, it would be sounder to Berkeley, told the audience at the Good Food Institute’s develop collagen for spinal-disk replacement, where the 2018 Conference in San Francisco about his concerns product could sell for hundreds of dollars a piece, than over maintaining the supply chain, unanticipated health to marble meat (a marginal addition at best). Likewise, issues caused by a product, and the product having a it would be wiser to attempt to take the ground beef high carbon footprint. To ensure that the process worked out of beef—where the as a whole, San Martin added monetary return observed, required more Even at this relatively early stage of development, on the product would transparency and third- it was clear to Flynn that cellular agriculture would likely be greater than (in party corroborative anal- always be a business-to-business and not a business- an implicit dig at JUST)275 ysis.276 to-consumer industry. removing the eggs from Even at this relatively mayonnaise. early stage of develop- A further problem observed by Flynn, echoing Brian ment, it was clear to Flynn that cellular agriculture would Spears of New Age Meats, was that due to cellular agri- always be a business-to-business and not a business-to- culture’s origins within the biology labs of animal sciences consumer industry: it was the only way the industry could departments, engineers who might be able to offer the benefit from the economies of scale already embedded kind of systemic thinking and scalable solutions essential in the agriculture and food delivery systems. As such, to commercialization were not being brought into the he said, cellular agriculture was already crying out for process early enough. Doing so, would likely correct a streamlining and consolidation—with the remaining conceptual bias that orients itself to the development of organizations either forming their own trade association the cellular structure of the animal it would otherwise or joining existing ones.l
24 Regulatory Challenges in their earliest stages, to welcome regulatory oversight and Although the cellular meat industry in the United States document thoroughly every component of their business.279 recognizes the difficulties faced in bringing products to One of the purviews of this regulatory structure is likely market, it acknowledges the prime need for a sound regu- to be the standardization of current and future cellular tech- latory structure to allay potential fears regarding this new nologies. Regulation and standardization will need genuine technology. third-party certifications and the checks and balances At the moment, U.S. governmental regulation focuses provided by rigorous academic and civil society groups on what ingredients and processes could be “generally recog- examining the entire chain from development to product nized as safe” (GRAS), what are novel or unique, and what rollout. These, in turn, will require transparency, thorough processes or substances might cause contamination. After safety assessments, and clear standards and definitions. They some jurisdictional squabbling,277 the Department of Agri- will also demand less hype and more realistic timeframes to culture (USDA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) obviate false expectations. in October 2018 agreed to act as joint regulators for cellular A further regulatory question is whether the plant-based meat and dairy products: the latter tasked with regulating and cellular agriculture industry might wish state or federal food and ingredients and determining the safety of ingredi- governments to go beyond their limited purview of what ents, including those in meat, poultry, and biotechnology; the cellular meat and dairy will be called and determinations about former responsible for meat and poultry and their products.278 its safety. Perhaps not surprisingly, given their nascent and The decision to regulate jointly presents potential obsta- potentially difficult relationships with governmental agencies cles as well as benefits. In the case of the former, joint regu- and conventional animal agriculture, most entrepreneurs in lation might lead to more the plant-based and cellular bureaucratic wrangling meat space prefer not to Big Ag may find it needs plant-based and cellular meat and political interference. engage with food policy, companies more than it thinks: either in growing the In the case of the latter, except when it infringes media that cellular agriculture will require or using food it might open a clearer on their rights to call their science to expand the range, sustainability, and shelf life pathway from where products “meat” or “dairy.” of their products. cellular meat currently is For instance, when (as a biological-scientific the author of this paper process within the purview of the FDA) to where it wants asked Celeste Holz-Schietinger of Impossible Foods and David to be (as a food item associated with other protein sources, Benzaquen of Plant Based Solutions whether they thought and thus within the purview of the USDA). On the face of companies might wish to pressure government to remove it, therefore, there would appear to be little regulatory vari- subsidies from conventional animal agriculture, Holz-Schi- ability that couldn’t be encompassed by the current U.S. etinger stated that Impossible Foods’ strategy was customer- governmental system. based, and Benzaquen argued that the Good Food Institute and Either way, the cellular agriculture industry appears to the Plant-Based Food Association were doing the necessary recognize, according to Deepti Kulkani, partner in the food, work of making sure that food is not labeled disadvantageously drug, and medical device regulatory practice at the law firm for plant-based and cellular products. Benzaquen argued that Sidley Austin, that all parts of the cellular meat–production business could generate change much faster than policy.280 process (ingredients, media, scaffolding, and bioreactor) As meat scientists Benji Mikel and Lauren Sammel would need to be inspectable and traceable—including have suggested at the New Harvest and Good Food Institute ensuring that ingredients that may undergo change during conferences respectively, Big Ag may find it needs plant- manufacturing—even those that are GRAS—are appropri- based and cellular meat companies more than it thinks: either ately labeled and the facility is clean. The agencies would in growing the media that cellular agriculture will require or need to be assured that facilities have controls in place to using food science to expand the range, sustainability, and prevent unique hazards and toxicity, and establish levels of shelf life of their products.281 With the investments made by purity—known as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Tyson, Cargill, and ADM in the plant-based and cellular agri- Control Points). The industry is aware of this, with those, culture sectors, neither conventional nor cellular agricultural such as Kulkani and Eric Schulze, vice-president of product industries may see strategic reasons to disturb a food system and regulation at Memphis Meats, who were themselves geared to growing the crops that might literally constitute the regulators, urging cellular agriculture companies, even those product they’re trying to manufacture and sell. 25 Another area of potential policy conflict or synergy may be political or social pressure on finan- cial institutions to move their investments from conventional animal agriculture because of corpo- rate social responsibility (CSR) mandates from shareholders and higher insurance costs. The latter might come from future crop282 and livestock loss283 due to heat stress caused by climate change, and public health challenges as a result of antimicrobial resistance because of the global overuse of anti- biotics in industry rearing practices.284 This is the approach of FAIRR: an organization that with eighty institutional investors with assets of $12 trillion is pushing asset managers in large financial institu- tions to switch investment from large-scale intensive animal agriculture.285 Tyson, Cargill, and others may accel- The top 20 meat and dairy companies combined emit more greenhouse gases 288 erate their investment in and diversification than either Germany, Canada, Australia, the UK or France. of protein sources to reduce their financial liabilities as well as demonstrate that the industry is contrib- and rice being approved by U.S. regulatory bodies, the salmon uting to meeting the climate-change goals of the Paris Agree- had not (as of 2018) been released into the U.S. market and ment,286—especially given the enormous GHG emissions the Golden Rice rollout remains stalled. multinationals such as Tyson, Cargill, and Brazilian behe- The AquAdvantage salmon, the first FDA-approved moth JBS produce (see illustration, right).287 Whether such genetically modified food animal,304 was given the green light a move would prolong conventional animal agriculture or in 2015, after sixteen years in development. Although avail- hasten its demise is an open question. able for sale in Canada since 2017, the salmon isn’t grown in the United States. Environmental NGOs, such as Food & Consumer Challenges Water Watch305 and Friends of the Earth,306 have raised the The notion that we stand on the verge of a revolution in food alarm regarding public health about eating what Friends of science permeates both the plant-based and cellular agri- the Earth calls “synthetic salmon,” and the effect of “Fran- culture spaces. In general, there is a faith that technology kenfish” on wild ecosystems. will solve apparently insuperable problems. However, even In the case of Golden Rice, groups such as GRAIN, within plant-based and cellular industries defined by moving India-based Navdanya, and Greenpeace have claimed its “beyond” and making the “impossible” possible, strategies introduction would promote monocultures, limit farmers’ for broadening consumer interest remain unclear—especially choices, threaten biodiversity and conventional rice breeds, as foods that seem novel and technologically advanced may and jeopardize food sovereignty.307,308,309 be exciting and forward-thinking to some, but worrisome or For Stotish, speaking at the 2018 New Harvest Confer- even dangerous to others. ence, the lessons for cellular agriculture companies were Both the Good Food Institute and New Harvest confer- threefold: to be optimistic, engage early and often with those ences have featured speakers who emphasize how essential who might oppose them, and to communicate what they were it is for cellular agriculture companies to prepare consumers doing and why. It was vital, he said, to conduct the best science for new food items well in advance of their introduction into one could but not assume it would insulate the company from the marketplace. Whether it is Ron Stotish of Aquabounty,301 attack. He urged conference attendees to resist assuming the the company behind the genetically modified AquAdvantage regulatory process was free of politics (it most emphatically salmon,302 or Katharine Kreis of PATH Innovation,303 who wasn’t), but instead to develop coalitions with like-minded spoke at the 2018 New Harvest Conference about Golden organizations. He added that innovators should be prepared Rice, a genetically modified form of the staple with enhanced for delays, media attacks, and setbacks. beta-carotene, the watchword is caution. At the moment, contradictory impulses and uncer- Stotish and Kreis pointed out that in spite of the salmon tainty mark consumers’ attitudes toward cellular food 26 what is meat and dairy? Another purview of the USDA and FDA will be the naming industry might not feel sanguine about having to employ of the cellular manufacturing process and its products (see that definition on its packaging.296 “Terms of Reference” on p. 18). This decision will likely be Furthermore, instead of asking non-dairy milk to affected to some extent by the current wrangling over the call itself a “beverage,” for example, clarification might as words meat and milk. Although plant-based meat products readily be achieved by non–farmed animal meat and dairy still represent less than one percent of the current protein producers making the distinction on their packages that market, their visibility and recent growth—as well as the their products do not involve death, dismemberment, significant inroads that non-dairy milks have made into the forced feeding, an animal’s organs, or the removal of broader milk market—have caused some legislators and calves from their mothers. Such transparency might also animal-based agricultural organizations to seek to narrow be aided by an honest assessment of what the labels the definition of what can be calledmeat or milk. humanely raised, free-range, or cage-free mean—either In 2018, the state of Missouri, where Beyond Meat in theory or in practice.297 At any of these points, of is expanding its operations,289 passed legislation290 course, the push for “transparency” or an appropriately determining meat as a product only “from harvested informed consumer might draw even more attention to production livestock or poultry.” The Dairy Pride Act, co- an animal-based agriculture that, in lobbying for “ag-gag” sponsored by U.S. senators from Minnesota and Idaho, laws, is making it harder for people to know what goes on would enforce labeling of butter and milk as only coming in CAFOs.298 from a “hooved mammal.”291 The European Union has Indeed, highlighting assumptions over what exactly moved to legislate292 against allowing cellular meat to constitutes meat or milk offers an opportunity to reflect call itself meat, and the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association on the fluid, even arbitrary meanings surrounding both has petitioned the government to request that beef and terms: meat, after all, once referred to food in general. meat labels not be attached to products “not derived One might further inquire why it is appropriate to use directly from animals raised and slaughtered.”293 A meat to describe the flesh of cows, pigs, sheep, goats, number of groups are now challenging the Missouri law as poultry, rabbit, and deer, but not cats, rats, or elephants. unconstitutional.294,295 Why should drinkable milk for humans come from cows, The farmed animal industry and the legislators couch goats, and sheep, but not from rats, possums, or, for that their complaint as consumers being misled into thinking matter, humans after weaning? they will either be tasting “real” meat or milk or butter, Whether this conversation occurs or not, it seems as opposed to a plant-based substitute or a non–animal likely that the financial investment of agribusiness in the sourced beverage or spread. In the case of cellular products, cellular space and the continued expansion of the non- the concern is that consumers will be unable to discern dairy beverage market will ultimately limit the farmed whether the meat or dairy comes from a slaughtered animal industry’s resistance to using terms like meat animal or not. Tendentious though either argument may and milk only for farmed animal products, especially be, and protectionist of conventional animal agriculture since further “clarifying” legislation might run afoul of though such legislative efforts may appear, both actions terminology for shea or peanut butter, nut cutlets, milk nonetheless point to interesting hermeneutic questions of magnesia, or artichoke hearts.”299 Regulatory efforts that may, in turn, present conceptual openings or, in turn, may push more companies in the cellular and plant-based barriers to the widespread adoption of plant-based and space to brand their products as neither the old veggie cellular meat and dairy products. burger nor a meat/dairy analogue, but something new: For instance, a specified clarification of what like Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and Ripple. Indeed, constitutes beef or meat etc. may alert consumers to as Chris Bryant, director of social science at the Cellular the very origins and processes that are themselves Agriculture Society and a scholar of public perceptions disguised in words like livestock, foie gras, veal, offal, or, of cellular meat at the University of Bath, observes, the for that matter, harvesting, rendering, and maceration. goal may be to make all such products—whether plant, Furthermore, given that the standard industry definition cellular, and animal—meat, or return the category to the of animal-based milk is “lacteal secretions,” the dairy general term of food.300 l
27 products—as well as a deep ucts would resolve some of investment in the status quo. the moral conflict that vegans When participants in one may experience in feeding study were asked to choose companion animals.316 One between theoretical meat- company looking to develop based, plant-based, and cell- food for companion animals based meat burgers, two- in the plant-based and thirds opted for the first even cellular meat spaces is Wild when they were informed the Earth (see image, left). burgers would taste exactly This paper has already the same.310 As Barb Stuckey touched on the possibility of Mattson notes, consumers that cellular meat might are extremely confused Wild Earth’s Dog Treats (made with Koji, a fungus) extend the shelf life of animal about what “clean meat” is, products and provide more and who it is for—with most assuming that “clean meat” is hybridized items to bring to market. It is also possible that for, presumably no longer sad and gastronomically deprived, cellular meat and dairy products might enable consumers to vegans.311 However, these attitudes might be changing. In a eat more farmed animal meat and dairy.317 Obviously, this deci- November 2018 survey conducted on behalf of the Good sion remains hypothetical, and consumers who claim other- Food Institute by Faunalytics, a research organization that wise may be virtue-signaling in a space ripe for it. However, focuses on animal issues, more than two-thirds of respon- the various and sometimes contradictory responses to surveys dents said they were open to tasting a cellular meat product, suggest that assumptions about consumption patterns and half were willing to eat it instead of a current meat product, various “substitution” analyses might be simplistic regarding and slightly fewer than half indicated they would buy it.312 the upcoming relationship between plant-based, cellular, and Beyond the consumer surveys, however, are broader farmed animal meat and dairy.318 concerns about whether cellular meat and dairy products will Yet another riposte might be that those who are protein gain purchase among customers. First, it is reasonable to ask deficient, or who live in areas of the world where climate why cellular meat and dairy products might even be necessary change is threatening pastoral or small-scale farming, may if biochemistry is revolutionizing the taste profiles of plant- welcome access to cellular meat and dairy as a means of based foods—especially given the many technological, regu- gaining food security without intensifying or industrializing latory, and consumer-response complexities outlined above— their animal agriculture industries. (See “The Case against and if plant-based equivalents are proving so successful. Cellular Meat” below for a counter-argument.) That said, reli- Indeed, Pat Brown, CEO of Impossible Foods, has called able supply chains and the affordability of products would cellular meat “one of the stupidest ideas ever expressed,”313 a remain formidable obstacles to widespread adoption. statement that indicates that businesses in competition may For Kate Krueger of New Harvest, speaking at the Ivy share common goals but little else with one another. League Future of Food Conference in Philadelphia in 2018,319 One response to this observation might be that the one interesting element of cellular agriculture is not in the technology that supports the former also supports the latter, replication of current animal products but in their improve- and that cellular products would enable those with allergies ment: manipulating cells to increase un- and polyunsaturated to certain nuts, legumes, or grains to continue to eat meat fatty acids and lowering amounts of saturated fats in meat; without an animal having to die to support that diet. Cellular adding fiber to any meat product; and even perhaps delivering meat could also supply pet food for so-called obligate carni- heme’s beneficial iron without its carcinogenic properties,320 vores and potentially remove a considerable source of revenue which might or might not settle Dean Ornish’s unease, as for the conventional meat industry, given that the pet food expressed in the 2018 Good Food Institute Conference, about industry is responsible for a quarter of all the meat produced the Impossible Burger. Such “improvements,” however, might worldwide.314 Indeed, it might be the case that cellular prod- still not allay worries about the ultimate safety of cellular ucts could prove the best market for companion animals, meat and dairy products that seek to replace ones that, for all since they won’t have to look or taste like conventional animal their many problems, are nonetheless known quantities with meat to keep their clients content.315 In addition, these prod- known issues.
28 the case against cellular and plant-based meat and dairy
everal of the criticisms leveled at Ron Stotish’s cellular meat’s benefits in methane reduction (caused by SAquadvantage Salmon and Golden Rice are being leveled lowering the number of cattle that produce the gas, which is at the new plant-based and putative cellular products, some of highly GHG-intensive but lasts relatively few years in the atmo- them by the same groups. sphere) would be more than offset by the generation of CO2 The first complaint is about safety and transparency— (which lasts longer in the atmosphere) in its production. John particularly of foodstuffs developed through GM or CRISPR Lynch and Raymond Pierrehumbert, the authors of the study, (Clustered Regularly Inter- observe that “cultured meat spaced Short Palindromic is not prima facie climatically Repeats) technology. In From superior to cattle; its rela- Lab to Fork: Critical Ques- tive impact instead depends tions on Laboratory-Created on the availability of decar- Animal Product Alterna- bonized energy generation tives (see image) Dana Perls, and the specific production senior food and agricul- systems that are realized.”326 ture campaigner of Friends A third objection of the Earth, asks how and takes a broader perspective. what chemicals are or will be Long-time food sovereignty used to develop cellular meat activist Vandana Shiva327 products. Will, for instance, has poured scorn on the the eventual cell culture ongoing and decades-long medium for the food source efforts of Western companies contain drugs or antibiotics such as Monsanto to patent in order to keep it free of biological processes328 and contamination? Will all ingredients and processes be listed— to stop farmers sharing seeds.329 At the launch in February including GMOs—on the products’ labels, and what risks 2019 of Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and might there be of environmental contamination should engi- the Battle for the Future of Food, a book by Timothy Wise of neered organisms be released by accident?321 the Small Planet Institute on small farmers around the world 330 To these anxieties about safety, one might add those resisting the depredations of global agribusiness, Shiva articulated by Stephens et al. regarding how stringently the railed against the EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, 331 industry would prevent contamination caused by cells dying Health for, as she stated, aligning itself with multinational in the production process or how tightly it would monitor corporations and philanthrocapitalists such as the Bill Gates fraudulent attempts to pass farmed animal meat off as cellular Foundation. The Commission, she said, placed too much meat and vice versa.322 Further, given that it is possible to faith in “fake” meat and dairy solving the global climate crisis, produce exotic or extinct animal flesh, or even human body while ignoring the “glaring chronic disease epidemic related parts, from stem cells, what is to prevent people from growing to pesticides and toxics in food, imposed by chemically inten- 332 “Dodo Nuggets” or “Celebrity Cubes”—from human cells.323 sive industrial agriculture and food systems.” A second criticism, articulated in From Lab to Fork, is For the ETC Group, a non-profit headquartered in whether the claims made by cellular and plant-based meat Canada that monitors emerging technologies, what it terms and dairy companies that their products are energy-efficient, “petri-proteins” are firmly embedded within a Western environmentally sustainable, and climate-friendly reflect full globalized model of large-scale monocultures, chemical 333 accountings of their lifecycle and footprint. For instance, agriculture, and multinational agribusiness. They would, 334 a 2015 study324 found that cellular meat production “could biologist Tom Wakeford of ETC has argued, present an involve some trade-offs, with significant energy use leading to existential threat to smallholder farmers in the global South, cultured meat having greater global warming potential than whose locally raised animal products could be displaced pork or poultry, but lower than beef, while retaining signifi- by a disruptive technology that provided cheap imports of cant gains in land use.”325 Another study questioned whether plant-based or cellular meat. Cellular agriculture, therefore,
29 would, like Golden Rice, be a potential further eroder of food sued for not being informed about the chemical’s carcinogenic sovereignty,335,336 and make it even harder for small farmers to properties.342 Indeed, in May 2019, it was announced that the retain their autonomy against a vertically integrated model of Impossible Burger tested positive for glyphosate at eleven contract farming.337 times the level of its competitor, the Beyond Burger.343 Of Journalist Joe Fassler, writing in The New Food Economy, course, the presence of GM soy in U.S. products is not unique parallels that worry when it comes to the potential disappear- to Impossible’s burger. The Glyphosate Fact Sheet, published ance of food animals. He argues that any patents on protein by the U.S. Right to Know,344 acknowledges that in the United production stemming from cellular meat production (or, as States some 90 percent of corn and 94 percent of soybeans he calls it, “the alt-protein factory”) threaten ordinary people’s have been “engineered to tolerate herbicides.” access to what he calls the “public good” of animals. He writes: the paradoxes of the debate The alt-protein factory of the future may have glass Brown’s press release/article weighs the claims of one set of walls, and may contain nothing within it that incites environmental values (those held by those who consider the human squeamishness at the idea of killing animals manipulation of nature in the form of genetic material to be for meat. But it would also herald the rise of a new potentially toxic, and bad for the environment, wildlife, and class of corporate food titan, a world where the humans) against his own environmental values (in which he protein we rely on to survive is not just food but argues that the raising of animals and the growing of feed intellectual property, the domain of corporations used to supply them is bad for the environment, wildlife, and with millions in R & D money.338 humans). It would be fair to say that each holds the others’ views to be unreasonable, ideologically driven, and unscien- As if to underscore the concerns of those such as Shiva, tific. So, how might we reconcile these competing sets of envi- Pat Brown, CEO of Impossible Foods, announced on May 16, ronmental values—assuming we might want to? 2019 that his company would start using GM soy from the One way would be for all concerned to push for less GM U.S. in its Impossible Burger.339 In the statement, Brown was soy and more non-GM soy to be grown in the U.S., and for emphatic and pugnacious, criticizing those who “reflexively other sources than soy to be used for plant-based meat prod- oppose[d] any and all use of genetic engineering,” and waving ucts. The new Impossible Burger itself switched from wheat off “[n]oise from anti–genetic engineering fundamentalists.” to soy as the base for the patty. Another option would be for In boldface type, he offered a different set of environmental consumers to “decide for themselves” to reject the Impossible metrics: Burger in favor of a plant-based diet that doesn’t involve soy or GM soy—much as the Aquadvantage salmon was consid- Compared to beef from a cow, producing the ered an unnecessary addition to the many varieties of fish Impossible Burger uses 87% less water, emits available to U.S. consumers. 89% fewer greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, Still another choice would be to reject this method of contributes 92% less water pollution, and uses food production in favor of regenerative and agro-ecological 96% less land, enabling healthy ecosystems to be agriculture, or, as Dana Perls of Friends of the Earth describes restored for nature and biodiversity. them, “well-managed, high-welfare pasture-based systems.” And crucially for critics of GM agriculture and These, she argues, “result in cleaner water, promote healthier those interested in food and environmental safety: soils that can sequester more carbon, release fewer toxins and About 80% less herbicide is required to produce the improve biodiversity and pollinator habitat compared with Impossible Burger than an average American cow- industrial animal agriculture.”345,346 Under such agricultural derived burger, because of the large amount of crops systems, animal products would be consumed, presumably as required to feed a cow to produce beef. whole cuts of meat and unprocessed milk, and presumably in smaller quantities. Such products, to echo the rhetorical Some environmentalists340 have contested Brown’s claims flourishes of Shiva, Wakeford, and Fassler, would be “real” about the health, safety, and environmental benefits of GM and not “fake”; field-grown and not “petri-tarian”; and the soy. They note that GM soy is sprayed with Monsanto’s herbi- protein would come from real slaughtered animals and not cide Roundup, whose main ingredient, glyphosate, in addition “alt” protein from their cell-lines. to being implicated in wildlife loss and reduced biodiversity,341 These alternative systems to both current industrial is the subject of three successful court cases where individuals animal agriculture and the efforts to move away from animal 30 ment. One fixable problem in the current system is not one of too little food or protein sources to feed the world, but that many of us in the industrialized world may be eating too much of it to start off with.352 In addition, too much of the plant-based and animal-based protein we grow or raise is either lost before it reaches market or wasted once it reaches the consumer. According to the FAO, roughly 1.3 billion tons of food is annually lost in the fields, or through poor storage or refrigeration in transportation, waste at retail,353 or by being fed to animals instead of directly to human beings.354 The World Resources Institute calculates that halving food loss would reduce by 22 percent the food gap between production now and consumption in 2050, when the human population will be likely almost two billion larger.355 Secondly, we could be eating the wrong kind of animal- based protein. Some advocates point to the possibility of farming insects to provide protein at scale with a significantly lower carbon footprint.356 In a study comparing theoretical farming altogether are not without their own controversies or efficiencies provided by at-scale insect farming, cellular meat strongly held ideological positions.347,348 For regenerative agri- production, and current agricultural methods, scientists culturalist Allan Savory, the solution to the climate and envi- found that insects were more efficient calorie and protein ronmental crisis is not to end beef production but to massively converters than larger animals, especially when they could be expand and extend it. He argues that better ruminant-grazing fed by-products and waste, but less efficient than plant-based practices could balance ruminant GHG emissions by seques- meats (assuming the latter were made of soy). The study tering carbon in the soil.349 In Savory’s formula, the land is estimated, however, that more land would need to be used heavily grazed and densely stocked, but for much shorter to scale up soy production to meet plant-based needs and periods of time than common practice among pastoralists. that cultured meat would save much more energy over beef The manure within this area is trampled into the soil, while production. The study also found that chicken-meat produc- plants are “shocked” into growing deep roots. Savory claims tion would be more than 30 percent more efficient than that were this strategy to be employed on grasslands around cellular meat production. This scenario, of course, cannot the world, 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent take into account how the cellular meat is produced (what would be removed from the atmosphere over forty years and energy source is used, or what the medium consists of); nor sequestered in five billion hectares of land. Such a reduction does it reflect the many different plant proteins (other than would, in effect reverse global warming. soy) that may be available in the future.357 Critics have remarked that these practices would at best Insects have been consumed by many cultures throughout only work in a limited number of locations. They observe history, in spite of the unease with which many in the global that claims as to their viability, carbon-reduction levels, and North may greet the idea. Insects can be grown in profu- universal applicability have been exaggerated, or the data sion, with little worry over extinction, and in multitudinous unforthcoming.350 They point out that even were all rumi- varieties.358 Some advocates propose feeding them to farmed nants to be grass-fed at every stage of the process (without animals and/or aquaculture fish,359 which may cut down on supplementation from grains in the finishing process or other using other fish or soy or other crops to do this, but might inputs, and not using arable land that could be used for food ultimately not lead to significant reductions in greenhouse gas directly delivered to humans), the per capita availability of emissions or water use. Others are suggesting that insects may animal protein would not be enough to meet the expected provide good alternatives for cat and dog food to reduce the global demand for meat and dairy products.351 amount of farmed animal–meat used for this purpose.360 There are other problems with a regenerative agricultural It should be added that those motivated by the reduc- approach, which will be addressed below. However, it’s worth tion of animal suffering are worried that insect farming might noting the larger contexts within which these conflicts take dramatically increase individual suffering at a time when place—ones that can form the basis of future mutual engage- science is showing that animals previously thought of as
31 corn, for instance, and then finding ways to generate demand for it.367,368 Nor do they lessen animal cruelty, nutrient run-off, GMO usage, or the public health costs of non-communicable diseases. In fact, according to a study in the journal Science, more than 80 percent of all farmland on the planet is given over to livestock, even though it only produces 18 percent of food calories and 37 percent of protein.369 Using plant-sourced foods to provide the same nutrition as beef, says a 2016 U.S. study, would require only 10 percent of the land and generate four percent of the GHGs.370 Another study found that whole-foods vegetarian and vegan diets use considerably less water and land, and produce fewer GHGs than conventional beef production. Plant-based beef burgers (which require more processing) lessen those gains, but they are still more beneficial in water consumption and GHG emissions than the current industrialized production system.371 lacking sentience, such as fish and insects, possess it.361 One Of course, cellular agriculture is still not at solution to this conundrum might be the cellular production a production stage that would reveal just how much water, of insect cell-lines, which could be grown with little or even energy, or feedstock would be required—a point essentially no serum, but may require enough energy to make it inef- conceded by Lynch and Pierrehumbert at the outset of their 372 ficient to produce at scale.362 report. Would the energy calculations change dramatically, It’s worth pointing out just how far away the current for instance, if the bioreactors were fueled solely by renew- industrialized animal farming system is to achieving almost able energy? Indeed, given how much water is spent, land-use all of the goals expressed by either agro-ecological systems or change required, and GHGs emitted through beef produc- 373 plant-based and cellular agriculture. The current approach to tion (see graph on this page), would no longer eating cows reducing GHGs in animal agriculture is to adjust the composi- and drinking cow’s milk be enough to make it unnecessary to 374 tion and acidity-levels of farmed animal feed to lower methane change the rest of the agricultural system? emissions; to move the animals off pasture into factory farms to better control their food consumption, water use, temper- the (less) meat of the matter ature, and waste emissions; repurpose waste as a biofuel; or As the above paragraphs illustrate, the challenges of comparing use more “efficient” breeds of animals.363 Instead of providing different agricultural systems—insect; cellular; agro-ecolog- corn, soy, or wheat as feedstock, some are advocating turning ical or regenerative; plant-based; chemical-industrial—are food waste, insects, seaweed, or algae into an animal feedstock, complicated by the degrees of emphasis placed by advocates or supplementing feed with a woody biomass.364 and policy makers on ensuring personal and public health, To advocates of industrialized animal agriculture, the meeting the desires of a global population to eat more animal widespread use of technology—whether electronic, chem- products, protecting the environment and stopping climate ical, or genomic—has allowed farms to become much more change, and ending factory farming and animal exploitation. productive and efficient.365 However, those efficiencies can That said, however you balance the competing demands involve using more, larger animals who consume more energy of the various protein delivery systems, most authorities on and produce more GHG emissions in total. Nor do such effi- the environment and climate change crises recognize the need ciencies make up for the inherent waste in the decision to plant to produce and eat less meat, especially among those of us who feedstock and raise animals—rather than growing food directly have access to a wide variety of alternatives. Meat reduction, for human consumption.366 Nor do they necessarily remove the however, is not the current trajectory of the planet’s human perverse incentives that lead to producing too much milk or population; in fact, more of us are eating more meat than ever
32 before.375 By mid-century, according to the United Nations, ideological battles over the limits of Nature and the nature of poultry consumption is projected to double, and beef and pork limits—or, for that matter, about the appropriate place of the consumption will rise by 69 and 42 percent respectively over domesticated animal in the environment. 2012 levels.376 Simultaneously, climate change is likely to make In the end, unpleasant and uncomfortable compro- both arable and pastoral land more vulnerable to drought mises are likely to be necessary as we struggle to cope with or flooding,377 reducing feedstock acreage and threatening diminishing resources in a world marked by simultaneous (farmed) animals with heat stress and lower productivity.378 over-abundance and scarcity. That world will require many Rural populations, unable to make a living through farming, more people who can afford it to eat fewer animal products so will move to cities or leave countries, further threatening food those who don’t get enough protein of any kind can eat some. production and putting more pressure on ecosystems, since Or, there will need to be many more vegans by choice and urban dwellers tend to eat more animal products.379 not necessity. Urban, industrialized, and cellular agricultures Therefore, even if many more farmers were to raise are likely to be essential because climate change is already animals using “well-managed, high-welfare pasture-based affecting pastoralists and farmers of all kinds all over the systems,” as Dana Perls of Friends of the Earth advocates, it world.387 The services required to maintain such farms amid seems very unlikely that regenerative agriculture would be globalization, the failure of governmental extension services, enough to meet the demands of a planet hungry for meat and land degradation, human population growth, and urbaniza- dairy products. Indeed, simply as a matter of carbon seques- tion are so significant that reducing our dependency on live- tration, as Garnett and Godde et al. report of current grazing stock would seem the minimum requirement.388 populations in Grazed and Confused?, “[t]he sequestration The standoff between some environmentalists and plant- potential from grazing management is between 295–800 based and cellular agriculturalists is, to this author, another
MtCO2-eq/year: this offsets only 20–60 percent of annual iteration of the longstanding debates over what is or is not average emissions from the grazing ruminant sector, and “unnatural.” Its echoes and fears exist in words like “fake” and makes a negligible dent on overall livestock emissions.”380 “petri-tarian”—as if the animal whose meat we eat or milk or As most in these varied spaces recognize—including eggs we take is not herself a product of scientific investigation the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)381— in labs and genetic manipulation, or is not regularly artifi- business as usual is unsupportable. Agriculture as a whole cially inseminated, mutilated, fistulated, hooked up to milking contributes about a quarter of all anthropogenic GHG emis- machines, trucked to slaughter, or subject to a host of other sions;382 however, of those emissions, two-thirds come from mechanized, technologized, and automated systems. But that, animal-based agriculture, and of all land used for agricul- of course, is not the purpose of these nomenclatures. They ture, three-quarters is set aside for the production of animal- exist, like Brown’s criticism of “fundamentalism,” to point based foods—the animals themselves and the crops grown to a rigid adherence to an overarching ideology that is non- to feed them.383 Animal agriculture utilizes nearly one-third normative. The ideology is messing with the proper order of of the total water footprint for agriculture,384 and is respon- nature; it is junk science masquerading as a practical solution. sible for widespread deforestation, particularly but not solely The curious paradox of the rhetorical stances of both in Central and Latin America.385 According to the FAO, the groups is how they mirror one another. Neither side can production of animal feed “constitutes 36 percent, 36 percent honestly claim their products are totally “clean,” since cellular and 28 percent of the total emissions for cattle, small rumi- meat is likely to require additives and other substances to nants, and buffalo, respectively.”386 avoid necrosis of the cell and extend the products’ shelf-life— Whatever the scientific merits of the case for and against just like meat scientist Benji Mikel tells us that meat does cellular agriculture’s utilization of molecular biology and today. Indeed, the notion of “cleanness” itself harkens back to genetic modification, or Impossible’s decision to use GM soy, the ideas of purity and goodness that govern what we consider or the countervailing promises of agro-ecology’s commit- to be “natural” food. Microbes can be both devastating and ment to an older science of animal breeding, seed propaga- necessary in food production. The delivery of heme iron can tion, intercropping, and natural pest management, it’s clear be both an untested carcinogen and/or potential allergen that the debate about what is or is not an acceptable way of whose presence in food reflects scientific and corporate irre- raising or eating animal products cannot be limited to science sponsibility, and it can be an essential component for human qua science. “Science” and “technology” themselves are not health in the global South and thus the reason to continue or ahistorical, fixed entities; and it might be impossible to avoid expand small- and medium-scale pastoralism there.389
33 the search for common ground vacuum and ignoring the values-driven knowledge base of the So, how might it be possible to find common ground amid founders of the companies they champion or fund.393 They the rancor of these niche concerns? After all, cellular meat might also be skeptical whether, in spite of the stated altruistic and dairy has yet to be produced at scale; plant-based meat motivations of some of the investors, entrepreneurs, and insti- products remain a fraction of the animal-based meat market; tutions in cellular agriculture, later adopters of the technology, certified organic acreage in the U.S. makes up less than one or the big private corporations that may take it over, will have percent of the more than 900 million acres of farmland anything other than their shareholders’ interests at heart.394 around the nation;390 and organic food is currently only 5.5 That said, given that so many vegan processed products percent of the food sold in the U.S.391 According to Jacy Reese, are already owned in part by multinational corporations, is cuts of organic meat constituted only 1.5 percent of sales of this argument already moot?395 Acellular agriculture is already fresh meat in the U.S. in 2016. Less than one percent of that well established, producing a range of items that, as was noted fresh meat fell under the label “grass-fed.”392 earlier in this paper, range from rennet to casein to insulin. Supporters of regenerative agriculture and/or a whole- These products are already in our bodies and foods we eat. food plant-based diet, and those who believe that it is morally Is it perhaps already understood in the emergent cellular wrong to eat animal products, and plant-based meat and dairy could find themselves aligned space that the trajectory of both against the development of involves corporate synergy cellular agriculture, and to a and continued expansion of lesser extent against contempo- processed foods? Are these rary plant-based meat and dairy. products attractive to corporate Both may for valid reasons farmed animal producers and resist the further commodifi- feed growers mainly because cation of animal flesh for the they expand the very thin profit of the technocratic global margins of profitability to be North that, they believe, fails to found in current industrial feed- value the essential right of the stock and livestock farming? farmed animal to exist outside This last rhetorical ques- a purely instrumental value tion may strike the reader as determined by their ultimate very cynical. As a counter- demise or exploitation. After all, point, it might be argued that if the ruminant offers manure, were plant-based and cellular carbon-sequestering potential, products to become additives social status, haulage, or tillage, in processed animal products then why should the animal they could complicate consumer have to die to prove its worth or notions of the “authentic” meat- offer a biopsy to justify its existence? based product and potentially draw attention to how indus- Both may, also validly, question the motivations of trial farmed animal–meat production is currently dependent Cargill, ADM, Tyson, Nestlé, and other corporations that on a range of “unnatural” processes and non–animal based have profited off industrial animal agriculture in investing ingredients. in these start-ups. They may wonder why some long-time This would assume, of course, that consumers want or animal advocates have been so welcoming of these behe- need to know what’s in their food or how it’s made, despite moths—without asking why they are continuing to invest in calls for transparency, hygiene, and “natural” ingredients. feedstock production and factory farming, and muting criti- Recalling Upton Sinclair’s difficulties in convincing people to cism of their ongoing systemic cruelty toward and slaughter care, perhaps instead of wanting transparency, provenance, of billions of animals. and engagement with their local farmers, the vast majority They may question why ethics or even animal rights have of consumers would prefer not to know or think about where so quickly been jettisoned as a tenable motivator of change, their food comes from, what’s in it, or who grows it—trusting even by those who were themselves long-time social activ- that the government or corporations will keep their products ists, who have assumed that technology takes place in a social “safe.” 34 A further reality check must be added here. As the provide valuable health outcomes through adjusting chemi- ongoing crisis affecting American farmers demonstrates,396 cals and growing periods, without changing the plant’s the current life for traditional contract farmers, both large genetic structure.401 These processes, says Harper, whose and small, is hard—and getting harder. Increased debt, Open Phenome Project offers “an open-source digital library further consolidation, more frequent extreme weather events, with open data sets that cross link phenotypic response in the rising price of land in rural areas, labor shortages: all plants (taste, nutrition, etc.) to environmental variables, these point to a reality that, around the world, animal-based biologic variables, genetic variables and resources required farming may no longer be a viable industry unless it is highly in cultivation (inputs),” have the potential to maximize yield consolidated. The implications should concern everyone and variety, with a minimum of wasted inputs and unused involved in food production. Throughout the American land, in a myriad of settings, both indoor and outdoor.402 So Midwest, and elsewhere, rural areas are losing population, technology, science, and genomics might in fact help small talent, and skills to the cities, with subsequent diminishment farmers and agro-ecologists utilize their land more efficiently, of a tax base, along with impoverishment and blight.397 and solve some of their most pressing needs—if they were to All these are occurring now, before plant-based meat be affordable, open-source, or widely available. and dairy products and cellular What will be required if agriculture’s technologies make these clashing notions of appro- a considerable impact on the priate technology are to come market. Nor is cellular technology together are imagination and, the only disruptive technology. perhaps, some courage. As Lav The use of robotics and auto- Varshney noted in his talk at mation (such as 3-D printing)398 the 2018 Good Food Institute could take some of the low-cost Conference, we are defined by labor out of food creation.399 our current conceptual space They could localize food produc- that determines the assump- tion and its deliverability.400 The tions of the appropriate use of emergence of cellular medicine technology, only for that tech- may generate individual diet nology to redefine that concep- regimens to provide targeted tual space. health outcomes. Computers When radio was first and block chain technology invented, he said by way of an are already allowing farmers to example, it was known as “wire- monitor spoilage and retailers to less telegraphy,” since the opera- trace products. tional space within which the It is a further function of the technology was developed was explosion in possibilities opened point-to-point communication. up by cellular and genomic technologies that not only can an The significant change of that particular technology came organism be altered but the ecosystem in which that organism when it shifted to a broadcasting medium, or “radio”: a point- operates might also change. According to Caleb Harper, to-everywhere communication. Plant-based and cellular director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at MIT’s Media meats, he continued, might be in their “wireless telegraphy” Lab, speaking at the 2018 New Harvest Conference, computers phase, and that it, like “radio,” had the potential of becoming now make it possible for farmers to estimate a yield and the something totally different and transformative in a manner as biochemical composition of any organism within any given yet unknown to us.403 environment. This technology allows for a maximally efficient As the effects of climate change become more severe or desirable outcome for the organism within that biome. In and systemic, the meaning of “natural” and “sustainable” other words, farmers can calculate which plants within which will likely be radically revised. What is and is not food or part of a field will grow under which optimal conditions, rather farming—or who a farmer “is” and where she farms will also than a single monoculture in a uniform biological space. change, and perhaps in ways that seem, literally, inconceiv- Furthermore, farmers can now grow food under condi- able to us today. Under such circumstances, why should the tions that optimize flavor, develop bacterial resistance, and definition of “farmed animal” not also be transformed?
35 a vision of the impossible? n 2003, the imaginative implications of the transforma- algae or combinations of cells from different animals), and Itive possibilities of cellular agriculture were hinted at by consumers can videolink to the field in which the cow whose the artists Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts, who prepared their proliferated cells they are now chewing on is grazing. miniature frog steaks as “disembodied cuisine.” As Cor van Prefiguring Hanyu, in 2006, cell biologist Vladimir der Wiele and Clemens Driessen observe, the many options Mironov similarly imagined a coffee maker–sized biore- provided by new production methods and recombination of actor,408 an idea that Mark Post considers impractical, given cellular meat in the future, the scale of production required to make the economics viable. However, like van der Weele and Driessen’s “pig in our afford the possibility to play, first imaginary, poten- backyard” (in which people would be able to source their own tially also real, with form, color, additions and taste, biopsies of muscle cells on a regular basis from an animal in as well as with various production processes, moral the neighborhood), Hanyu and Mironov’s active imaginations profiles, marketing profiles and consumer practices. It are in some ways an acknowledgment that a purely cellular seems to us a loss of opportunity to restrict the contri- future without the presence of farmed animals at all is, both bution of ethics to an evaluation of arguments for and morally and aesthetically, a less than satisfactory response to a against (underdeveloped forms of) cultured meat.404 world without animal slaughter. Van der Weele and Driessen characterized the atmosphere of their workshop on the “pig At this juncture in the development of plant-based food in our backyard” as “a combination of joy, inspiration and products and cellular agriculture, the possibilities still remain amazement.”409 open for a fully reimagined food landscape, even as compa- Why, therefore, wouldn’t it be possible to reimagine nies rush to bring products to market, scale up, and integrate pastoralist communities around the world employing Yuki completely into the current production and delivery system. Hanyu’s vision—or the animals whose biopsies make cellular As van der Weele and Driessen observe,405 the promise or meat possible? Why wouldn’t these same thousands of rumi- peril of cellular meat has destabilized binaries of veganism nants offer an opportunity to sequester carbon for carbon and carnivorism, sustainability and cruelty, natural and credits via regenerative agriculture and provide cell-lines for unnatural, and has opened up many conceptual spaces for meat, leather, and milk in Kenya and Paraguay and Mongolia, rethinking how we relate to food and animals in the Anthro- and more than pay their way? Animal families could be kept pocene. Cellular meat could reshape the marketplace as well. together as part of an extended community of fellow beings In contrast to the fears voiced by environmentalists such providing one another with sustenance for the full lifespan of as Vandana Shiva and Tom Wakeford that cellular meat’s both human and non-human animal. inevitable corporatization will destroy local farmers’ liveli- Presented through this lens, as Van der Weele and hoods and practices, Yuki Hanyu, a chemist and nanotech- Driessen note, “we can have it all: meat, the end of animal nologist who runs the Shojinmeat Project406 and Integricul- suffering, the company of animals and simple technology ture Inc.407 in Japan, has a different vision. Hanyu’s interest close to our homes.”410 In this way, Van der Weele, Driessen, extends beyond the science and commercialization of cellular and Hanyu’s visions present one means by which we can meat (the task of Integriculture) to the psychocultural land- provide “positive duties” to farmed animals, as articulated by scape where cellular meat is part of our everyday experience Will Donaldson and Sue Kymlicka in their book Zoopolis.411 (Shojinmeat’s orientation). Shojinmeat aims to democratize These positive duties—in addition to the negative ones of not cellular agriculture by encouraging DIY biofabrication enthu- harming animals physically or emotionally—take the form of siasts, students, researchers, artists, and writers to provide allowing these beings to live within their biological environ- familiar contexts for people within which to imagine cellular ments and among their conspecifics, and in so doing restore meat, such as setting up comic-cons and creating fantasy a measure of justice for the past wrongs we humans have fiction featuring cellular meat. inflicted on them by stifling their basic needs, breaking up For Hanyu, the opportunities for cellular meat lie not in their families, subjecting them to torturous confinement, and industry consolidation but in personalized and regionalized taking their lives by the billions. production. He envisages a time when every home has its Of course, many billions fewer of such animals would be own kitchen-top bioreactor, local farmers and hobbyists can alive. Perhaps they would exist in sanctuaries, among other develop their own cellular meat recipes (perhaps including farmed animals; perhaps they would be leased out to other
36 farmers to provide manure. Clearly, such visions for the future of cellular meat would have to fit into some set of legal parameters that would guarantee safety and transparency, not least regarding the treatment of the animals we use and the meat we eat. Nonetheless, it does not seem to this author to be inconceivable. Hanyu feels strongly that beyond the techno- logical possibilities, and the need for businesses to commercialize the processes and products that emerge from those possibilities, it is citizens and not industrialists who should set the direction of how they imagine these products might be used and the amount of control they wish to exert over them. How to go about doing that is the central challenge that faces all communities confronted by corporate power in the years ahead. To that extent, Hanyu’s vision admi- rably parallels the need for agency, connection to the animal, regionalism, and democratization that loca- vorism, slow food, and other social food and farming movements champion. As Yogi Berra once noted, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” The future of protein and its delivery might, in fact, look nothing like cellular meat. In 2017, a group of Finnish researchers reportedly used electricity and carbon dioxide to produce a batch of single-cell proteins, a protein of Soylent.414 On the other hand, the future of protein might that “can be produced anywhere renewable energy, such as also be surprisingly non-technological: it might be a combi- solar energy, is available,” in a technology that “releases food nation of fungus and insects; or the chewy, versatile, and production from restrictions related to the environment.”412 unglamorous jackfruit—ubiquitous throughout Southern Researchers in the U.K. are doing much the same from car Asia—might come to dominate the market.415 And there may exhausts.413 Perhaps we will be eating this, or some iteration remain, as ever, tofu, seitan, and tempeh. the future from davos? Still another future is hinted at (or parodied) by the writer fied among “third-generation farmers and anti-genetically Zoe Levitt in a piece for a journal composed for the 2017 modified organism naturalists to animal rights advocates, Davos conference.416 who believe cultured meat doesn’t go far enough.” But, she Leavitt imagines the U.S. in 2031, ten years after observes, many farmers (already propped up by govern- the breakthrough in cellular meat production (using an ment subsidies and the victims of automation and robot- algae-based serum). Cellular meat production is now 50 ics) have gone bust as the industry has consolidated and percent of the U.S. meat market, spurred by falling prices “big meat producers launched new, smaller ‘craft’ brands, for its production and an outbreak of pig flu in 2024 that aiming to bring a sense of nostalgia and authenticity to tra- saw fast-food chains switch to cellular meat. This meat ditional meat.” comes in a variety of flavors and with additions, such She imagines the energy savings from cellular agricul- as “Meattastic Vitamin B booster burger, Iron Maiden ture as limited, but “this is more than offset by the massive iron-enhanced beef for women and dozens more target- reductions in agricultural water usage.” Some rewilding has ing everyone from diabetics to those worried about bad taken place, greenhouse gas emissions are lower, and, Lev- breath.” itt notes wryly, the pharmaceutical industry has also shrunk Opposition to the growth of cellular meat has solidi- considerably. l
37 recommendations iven the nascent stage of cellular agriculture and the start-up to be launched into the marketplace and fixed in Gever-growing interest in plant-based meat and dairy countless patches or iterations. Due care and diligence were, alternatives, the following recommendations are, like the therefore, essential. This was an implicit rejection of a “tech- industries themselves, at once bold and cautious. Plant-based bro” Silicon Valley culture that has been criticized for its cava- and cellular agriculture could challenge the entire premises of lier attitude to institutions, personal privacy and data, and current agricultural practices as well as what constitutes meat exploitation of the vulnerable. It has also been criticized for its and dairy. At the very least, they could reorient themselves lack of racial diversity. Therefore, it would be valuable to diver- to address criticisms, both current and those that might be sify a space that lacks African-American or Latinx representa- raised soon, through specific policies. tion, and that has not, to this moment, spoken much about equity, social engagement, food justice, or food security. diversifying location, voices, people, and outlook Make a Genuine Commitment to Diversity: To hear from and Take It on the Road: To date, all conferences that have communicate with such voices would likewise yield insights focused on cellular meat in the United States have taken place into how social and conceptual barriers to the adoption of on the West and East Coast in locations—Berkeley; San Fran- new technology could be lowered and ensure the food system cisco; Cambridge, Mass.; New York City—associated with reflects the diversity of producers as well as consumers. As Eric technology hubs, so-called liberal elites, and consumers who Schulze of Memphis Meats notes, given the global potential of consider themselves at the forefront of new trends and tastes. this industry and the global and manifold cultural expressions Given the challenges faced by farmers and rural communi- of meat and dairy cuisine, it would make sense to diversify ties within the current system of agriculture, let alone what the industry from the outset to match the scope of the effort they may face in the future, it would make sense to host more required, as well as the available market.417 To instantiate equity, conferences in places that would welcome investment, e.g., in social capital, and community engagement as these industries Columbia, Mo., where Beyond Meat is expanding its manu- begin to move to developing and expanding their product facturing capacities. Here, individuals who wouldn’t other- lines would make sense in multiple ways—especially if there is wise be exposed to this information might learn about oppor- a genuine wish to shift the potentially catastrophic trajectories tunities for a future where diversified feedstock meets rising of farmed animal–product consumption. Providing space for demand for plant-based foods and/or providing the medium voices outside the world of consumer products would ensure or scaffold for cellular agriculture. that the socially transformative dimensions of these industries are not forgotten or stifled at birth. Listen to More Voices: Such a move would also center cellular and plant-based meat and dairy products as solutions for addressing the health issue farmers and perhaps allay concerns among environmen- From strictly an environmental, public health, and animal- talists about what kind of technology might be integrated welfare perspective, the shift from farmed animal to plant- into their practices. Either way, it would benefit the confer- based and cellular meat and dairy agriculture offers consider- ences to include more farmers (and not just cattle-ranchers) able benefits: a potential reduction in GHG emissions, lower among speakers, attendees, and exhibitors—especially on the risk of zoonotic disease and consumption of contaminated possibilities of growing a wider variety of plants either for meat, and an end to the manifold cruelties of industrial the cellular media or plant-based meat and dairy. Bringing animal agriculture, as well as the slaughter of tens of billions in farmers might reduce potential criticism that cellular and of individual animals. plant-based agriculture is only interested in courting the Nonetheless, the health profiles of processed foods processors of Big Ag at the expense of the growers. And it remain a concern. The Impossible Burger 2.0, launched in would open a pathway of ideas from growers, workers, small 2019, reduced the amount of salt and saturated fat in its burger, companies, and everyday consumers to and from developers, even as it switched from wheat to soy in the patty—and the use unfiltered by surveys. Such a dialogue could make cellular or of GM soy.418 This author considers Impossible’s decision, and plant-based meat the new “potato.” its CEO’s arrogance, not only a public relations mistake but Several speakers at the various conferences this author ultimately shortsighted. Why couldn’t Impossible Foods drive attended observed that food is not a nifty “app” or a dot.com the market for non-GM soy, or another plant protein, rather
38 quences for the industry going forward. This caution, there- fore, demands that the buzzwords of transparency, account- ability, and collaboration need to be actualized and codified. A third-party corroborative institution would be a valuable addi- tion to this space—beyond the business incubators, scientific clearinghouses, and conveners. This organization would do more than lobby for government not to change the names of their products or stall the regulatory process. It would monitor governance, timetables, and claims of companies.
Don’t Ignore Ethics, the Public Good, or Animal Rights: It would also be valuable to include voices in the space that address ethics and a vision of the future that isn’t about marketing, regulation, product development, consumer acceptance, and rounds of investment. How, for instance, might the world of cellular biology and cellular meat work in concert to provide “food as medicine”? What might be the ethics of our responsibilities to the thousands of animals that NüMilk Machine, Whole Foods, Brooklyn, NY would still be used as the sources of the cell-lines? Would the than fit into the current paradigm? Why not state that Impos- cellular meat companies bear an obligation to these animals sible will use GM to support U.S. farmers, but see it as a tran- to ensure not only their welfare, but of those others who sitional stage to a non-GM process and healthier, more diverse remain alive but whose utility might be in that they remind us systems of agriculture? As it is, plant-based and cellular meat of the exploitation, suffering, and death of billions of others? companies should engage more forthrightly about how much Would consumers or the CEOs allot a portion of the profits (if at all) they are improving public health—particularly in they make to fund farmed animal sanctuaries, or help farmers terms of the costs to health-care systems of non-communi- transition to non–animal based agriculture, or to rewild land cable diseases, antibiotic overuse and inefficacy, and the health no longer needed for feedstock to sequester carbon, or where profiles of their various meat and dairy products. wind and/or solar could be “farmed”?
making organizations more transparent If You’re Really Game-Changers, Change the Game: If the Protect against Fraud and Stop Overclaiming: It is possible, response to the above questions is “How is this my business?”, perhaps even probable, that cellular agriculture is hosting a “Why should I be responsible for farmers’ transition?”, “What Theranos “unicorn”419 among its start-ups: where the promise do we owe to the animals?”, or “The market’s invisible hand of a technology that changes everything (and doesn’t exist) is will be enough,” then what makes this space any more socially delivered by a young, charismatic founder who has consid- transformative than any other corporate reboot of a commod- erable corporate investment and star backers, and whether ified food culture processing animal products? What’s to deliberately or not misleads everyone to the detriment of those stop its businesses meeting their VC investors’ demands at trying to do similar work in that space. A culture that encour- the earliest opportunity with a novelty product that sustains ages anyone to start their own business; that fails to police and diversifies current farmed animal products rather than the hype; and that dampens due diligence, corporate respon- pushing for a radical overhaul of how animal protein is sibility, and realistic timeframes and actual deliverables to grown and delivered? There need to be commitments from reward charismatic leaders or media-friendly funding pitches founders to a triple bottom-line or to educate shareholders to is one that opens itself up to potential fraud and recklessness. seek a greater return on investment than found on quarterly income sheets. And if monitoring these is not the business of Ensure Third-party Corroboration: As various speakers have the Good Food Institute, New Harvest, or other bodies, then pointed out at the conferences the author has attended, the whose responsibility is it? food space involves public trust, the protection of health, and government oversight that make it vital to tread cautiously. The Think about the World After Cellular Meat Becomes a violation of any of these would have many more severe conse- Reality: If, as planned by some in the space, a cellular meat 39 experience or product is delivered to consumers within the As was noted at the beginning, the response to vegan- next four or five years,420 it may be that the regulatory proto- ism’s moralism from some in the cellular and plant-based cols are in place; the production, manufacturing, and delivery meat spaces has been not only to avoid ethical issues but to mechanisms are primed to perform their functions at scale; emphasize the rights of consumers in a market to be free to and the people are ready to embrace these new technolo- choose the products they want—and to make cellular and gies. But it seems worth taking the risk, like Yuki Hanyu, of plant-based products tasty, affordable, and ubiquitous: as stretching our imaginations to ask “And then what?” Perhaps good as, or even better than, their animal-based counterparts. it’s in responding to that follow-up question that cellular and The question remains, however, whether framing cellular and plant-based animal products may offer the most compelling plant-based meat in the language of choice rather than ethics and suggestive answers. Beyond the Vegan America Project may delay the adoption of products and processes that are itself, how might other individuals, universities, and other beneficial to the environment and public health over products institutions begin this conversation—in a way that honors that are detrimental. Continuing to pour salt, sugar, palm oil, risk and imagination and ethical frameworks for humans and high fructose corn syrup into processed foods and prod- and animals? Perhaps faculties engaged in animal studies, ucts is also a choice; subsidies to industry or lack of regulation the environmental humanities, and social sciences might make that choice a less costly one for business and a more convene with businesspeople, futurists, and natural scien- costly one for society, nonhuman animals, and the planet. tists to open up new conceptual possibilities and examine or Silence on the current governmental policies that support Big define areas for caution and care? Ag for fear of “politicizing” the space would seem only to risk reinforcing business as usual. Foster a Genuinely “Open-source” Culture: Finally, given the scope of the opportunities to refashion animal farming in a Seek Government Investment: As Adam Flynn (see “The way that genuinely ends so much animal suffering and at least Naysayer” on p. 24) suggests, private capital may not be theoretically offers many climate, environmental, and public enough to move cellular agriculture beyond its niche posi- health advantages, it would be a singular contribution of these tion. It would, therefore, be wise to press governments to industries to make as much of their processes as transparent, bring their scientific research, funding capabilities, and open-source, and patent-limited as possible. If moral (and institutional weight so as to galvanize the development of even contractual) pressure is applied in these early stages, then cellular agriculture and conduct research into other plant it might be possible to avoid cartels and corporate behemoths sources. Lincoln’s signing of the Morrill Land Grants Act stifling innovation, holding up development, and further in 1862 enabled extension services and agricultural knowl- impoverishing local or small-scale food providers. If that edge to be spread throughout the United States.423 Something seems unlikely, then it’s up to the organizations in this space to similar could be applied here not only to kick-start a new hold them accountable; and if they can’t, then they will invite frontier of agriculture but to create an agriculture that moves more, and more stringent, criticism—and it will be justifiable. away from a chemically dependent, commodity crop–based system in favor of something more diverse, regional, creative, recognizing the importance of policy and locally sustainable. Why shouldn’t the plant-based and There Is No Such Thing as a Policy Vacuum. Fill It: In his book cellular industries lead that charge? The End of Animal Farming: How Scientists, Entrepreneurs, and Activists Are Building an Animal-Free Food System, ethicist Emphasize Varied Engagement: Varied policy engage- Jacy Reese of the Sentience Institute argues that one reason ment is essential—if only to situate plant- and cell-based why years of vegan advocacy has failed to expand significantly meat companies in a conversation with environmentalists, the number of those who do not eat animal products is that rural development specialists, and public health advocates, “people are far more willing to support institutional change and to show how the plant- and cell-based meat and dairy than they are to change their individual consumption.”421 industries understand how currently the supposed choices Reese’s observation suggests that veg*sm’s tying of dietary we consumers make in the marketplace may not be genuine habits to virtuous behavior convinces no one and instead choices at all. Why should the default for protein be animal? signals to those who still eat animals that they are bad people, Why should richness, status, and masculinity be defined by which creates backlash and resentment rather than change. As meat? For that matter, why should the word farmer conjure Tobias Leenaert puts it, vegans want people not only to stop up a middle-aged white man in rural America herding cattle, eating animals, but to do it for the right reasons.422 and not a young black woman owning a vertical farm in Balti- 40 more? To cede the political and conceptual space to current responses to that “system of meanings.” Of course, these are agricultural policies; to disengage the ethical dimension of always subject to change: witness the French and the potato. eating responsibly; and to ignore animal cruelty for the sake However, the speed and scope of global warming, the assault of not discomforting business partners is itself a policy and an on biodiversity and ecosystems, the ongoing exploitation of ethical position—whether we want to admit it or not. billions of farmed animals, and technological transformation make the urgency of discovering new systems of meaning developing a new system of meanings even more pressing. Recognize that Food Is Never Just Taste, Price, Convenience: In his talk on the panel “From Field to Fork: The Science and Don’t Be Afraid to Be Wrong: Every person on this planet Nutrition Behind Plant-based Meat” at the 2018 Good Food who will be alive in the year 2050 is likely to encounter, Institute Conference, Ricardo San Martin of UC Berkeley was either directly or indirectly, unimaginable change—both in no doubt that the scientific issues surrounding the devel- miraculous and cataclysmic. Dislocations, both physical and opment of alternative proteins would be solved. For him, conceptual, will demand not only flexibility and resilience but however, the main issue that needed to be grappled with in also the willingness to discard old identities that may have the years to come was not looking at an animal product as served our societies and our roles within them in the past an object (to which you might affix taste, price, and conve- but may no longer be viable or even possible. Neither the nience), but as a “system of meanings.”424 These, to return to blithe assurances of market disrupters and techno-utopians, Nick Fiddes’ observations at the start of this paper, constitute nor the comforting visions of Eden restored (as expressed a set of ideas, feelings, and relationships that center a human by agro-ecologists and whole-food, plant-based vegans), will being in a family, culture and region, and generate stories that likely be able to carry the multiple breakdowns in meaning we tell about these facets of our humanity to ourselves, our that communities of the future may experience in the face of children, and society at large and over time. massive ecological, economic, and social disruption. In such circumstances, and given the possibilities opened Reimagine, (Re)create What It Means to Consume: One up at this moment for completely reimagining our relation- suggestion that stems from San Martin’s insight would be to ship with the farmed animal, it is worth opening up dialogue, invite into the plant-based and cellular spaces at this nascent accepting insights, and increasing the dimensions of the space stage more cultural anthropologists and artists who could within which plant-based and cellular meat and dairy prod- frame a discourse around the animal product that goes beyond ucts operate—in short, to generate more systems of meaning— science, market, and business, and perhaps to construct subtle before (in every sense of the phrase) it is too late. v notes
1 For these organizations: Ivy League Future of Food Conference 2014) (Lafayette, CA: SoyInfo Center, 2014), 9
42 Inside the U.S. Meat Industry, revised edition (Amherst, NY: 52 “World Meat Production to Reach Record High in 2018, Prometheus, 2006); and Pachirat, Timothy. Every Twelve FAO.” Global Agriculture, November 9, 2018
43 Alternatives. Mintel, October 1, 2018
44 Milk without Cows.” Forbes, November 16, 2018
45 in Beardsley, Eleanor. “For A Healthier Planet, Eat These 50 Hemp, and Flax Seed.” Food Navigator, July 13, 2018
46 March 25, 2018 47 Science & Technology (March 2017) 61: 11–25 48 49 Bioengineering Could Change Meat Production. Harvard 277 Watson, Elaine. “FDA, USDA, to Share Regulatory Oversight University Blog, February 27, 2018 50 Technical, Socio-political, and Regulatory Challenges in Preferences for Plant-based and Cultured Meat Burgers.” Cellular Agriculture.” Trends in Food Science & Technology Appetite (June 2018) 125(1): 428–437 51 326 Lynch, John, and Raymond Pierrehumbert. “Climate Impacts 1, 2018 52 353 See Gustavsson, Jenny, et al. Food Losses and Waste: Extent, Nobody Wants.” Bloomberg, October 17, 2018 53 who.int/nutrition/topics/3_foodconsumption/en/index4. . .” See 54 for Cultured Meat; Ethics through and as Design.” Animals 417 Eric Schulze made similar comments at the 2018 Good Food (2013) 3(3): 647–662 (658–659). Institute Conference in San Francisco food details and locations Cover: Beyond Meat Beyond Sausage Brat Original flavor topped Page 11: A breakfast plate with tofu scramble, potatoes, sausage, with pickled jalapeños and caramelized onions, served in a baked beans, and toast and a breakfast burrito with a side of pretzel roll from Bareburger at Yankee Stadium in Bronx, NY. tempeh bacon from Bar Velo in Brooklyn, NY. Page 1: Beyond Meat Beyond Sausage Hot Italian flavor served with Page 16: Fried chick’n sandwiches from Hartbreakers in Brooklyn, NY. sautéed onions, peppers, and mushrooms, roasted cherry Page 17: Burrito made with Sweet Earth Foods Chipotle seitan, tomatoes, navy beans, and parsley. sweet potatoes, kale, and salsa. Page 2: Breakfast burrito with beans, seitan bacon, tomatoes, Page 19: A reuben made with seitan pastrami, sauerkraut, spicy greens, and hollandaise sauce from Seitan’s Helper at their pickles, cashew provolone, and Russian dressing, served on pop-up in Queens, NY. marble rye from The Bonnie in Queens, NY. Page 4: Avocado toast made with onion marmalade, pickled Page 31: A homemade tempeh and black bean burger topped jalapeños, sesame seeds, and scallions, with a side of tofu with vegan smoked gouda, sautéed mushrooms, cucumber, scramble and seitan bacon from Pisces Rising Vegan at Pisces avocado, red onion, and romaine lettuce. Rising pop-up in Queens, NY. Page 34: Rueben with seitan pastrami, sauerkraut, beer cheese, Page 5: Everything bagel with chipotle mayo, spinach, tofu and Russian dressing, on a homemade rye pretzel roll made by scramble, cassava bacon, picked onions, and avocado. Hunted Gatherer at the Vegan Market pop-up in Brooklyn, NY. Page 10 (top): Chopped cheese sandwich and BBQ Impossible Page 35: Deluxe Italian sandwich made with salami, pastrami, Burger from Veggie Castle II in Queens, NY. cheese, pepperoncini, tomato, lettuce, mayo, and mustard Page 10 (bottom): Beyond Meat Beyond Burger served with lettuce, from Haymaker’s (now closed) in Brooklyn, NY. tomato, onions, pickles, cheese, and mayo at Bareburger in Page 37: Fried chick’n sandwiches, chick’n tenders, and loaded fries Brooklyn, NY. from Hartbreakers in Brooklyn, NY. 55 www.brightergreen.org